Protesters rally to urge government to back universal pensions
Organisers of the rally said 5,000 people took part, but police put the number at 1,900
Protesters, including some 300 elderly or disabled wheelchair users, braved the heat on Sunday and marched from Central to Admiralty to urge the government not to back proposals for a means-tested retirement protection scheme.
Organisers of the rally said 5,000 people took part, but police put the number at 1,900.
The rally came two days before a public consultation on retirement protection is set to end.
In August last year, a study commissioned by the government and conducted by social work professor Nelson Chow Wing-sun floated a proposal to let everyone aged 65 or above – rich or poor – receive a pension of HK$3,230 a month without a means test.
But at the launch of a public consultation six months ago, officials put forward two proposals – one is a universal scheme based on Chow’s idea, while the other, which the government prefers, is a non-universal scheme with eligibility criteria including an asset limit of no more than HK$80,000 for an elderly person living alone.
Protest organiser, the Alliance for Universal Pensions, called for the implementation of a scheme that would see 30 per cent of the financing come from employer and employee contributions to the Mandatory Provident Fund, 50 per cent from the government, including original expenditure for elderly social protection and the injection of HK$100 billion, and 20 per cent from large corporations and investment returns, including increasing profits tax of corporations with annual profits of at least HK$10 million by 1.9 per cent.
According to the scheme, those aged 65 and above will benefit from a monthly handout of HK$3,500, and the scheme could last till 2064 with a HK$160 billion surplus.
Protesters began along Chater Road, symbolically passing the HSBC Main Building and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority office, ending at the Chief Executive’s Office, where they pasted stickers asking Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to not evade his election promise on universal retirement protection.
Leung Choi-chun, 86, said the sweltering heat did not deter her from participating in the protest as she was “concerned for the next generation”.
“I’m very thrifty, so I can still live with the current government hand-outs. But if I fall sick, I will be worried that I would need more money,” she said.
A young woman, Shirley, said a universal retirement protection scheme was a “basic value”.
“[The elderly] have contributed to the society for so long, they really deserve some basic protection,” she added.
Nicholas Chan Hok-fung, spokesman for the alliance, said opinion polls and consultations by the alliance and Polytechnic University in the past six months showed 64-67 per cent of respondents supported a universal pension scheme.
He also criticised the government for taking a stand on the issue before the public consultation concluded.
Separately, the Hong Kong Policy Research Institute also released its proposal on Sunday.
The think tank believes only a HK$4,000 payment would provide the elderly a living with “dignity”.
To be eligible, Hong Kong permanent residents aged 65 or above must earn less than HK$4,000, with the government bridging the difference.
The group estimates 60 per cent of the elderly will receive a full HK$4,000 payout, while another 30 per cent will get HK$3,000 or less a month.
A separate rental allowance of up to HK$3,500 is also available those who live on their own.
The controversial part of the scheme is the setting up of a 3 per cent sales tax, which would generate HK$14 billion in 2015 figures.
