The controversial proposal on colpensiones by Gustavo Petro that heated the spirits on social networks

This Tuesday, social networks were once again the scene of a clash between those who support Gustavo Petro's proposals, in case of reaching the presidency of Colombia, who disagree with him.

The comments began after the presidential debate that took place under the El Tiempo y Semana alliance, where the presidential candidate spoke about the issue after being questioned by Federico Gutiérrez, who won the consultation of the Centro Esperanza coalition.

Faced with the questioning, Petro assured that this money would come out of the pension system, and that was when the issue of Colpensiones came up, which generated quite a lot of doubts among citizens who expressed it through social networks.

“Where does that silver come from? For a reform of the pension system, the money is there, it is not needed any more, it does not need to be printed, it needs to change its distribution,” said Gustavo Petro.

As explained by the same candidate, this idea is based on systems that have already been applied in other countries, such as Uruguay.

“Instead of having private pension funds, with poorly managed individual savings contributions at 30% that they collect in a bank, you send that money to a public fund: Colpensiones. With that money we immediately pay the current pensions that the State is paying today,” said Petro.

Thus, the State would be released from 18 billion pesos annually from the budget, to pay the pension bonus of 50 thousand pesos to three million people.

Reactions on social networks

This issue generated quite controversy on social networks where they very much assured that Petro seeks to “expropriate” the pensions of those who have been paying for years.

“To tell the truth is to say that Petro wants to nationalize private savings to make it part of the nation's budget. Savings would no longer be private but of the State,” wrote one Twitter user, who also questioned the presidential candidate assuring that Pension Fund Administrators do not charge 30% administration fee but a maximum of 3%.

“Nationalizing the 357 billion pesos that are currently in individual pension savings accounts would be the biggest theft in the history of the Colombian state,” is another comment on social networks.

However, there were also those who supported the idea and tried to explain what this proposal is about.

“I will explain to you what @petrogustavo meant about pension fund resources and that neither Fico nor Ingrid were able to understand. In order to be able to pay all the pensions of Colpensiones, the STATE must inject around 19 billion pesos,” one Twitter user wrote.

“The proposal is, a single pension fund that is Colpensiones, and the resources from contributions that are currently transferred to private funds by contributors (citizens), reach Colpensiones to finance the pensions of ALL Colombians and thus be able to release the 19 billion that the STATE must spend to Colpensiones to be able to comply with the payment of the pension payroll and with those resources (THOSE RELEASED FROM THE STATE, NOT THOSE RELEASED FROM THE STATE, NOT THOSE FROM PENSION SAVINGS) to pay social policies such as those he mentioned,” he added.

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