Rwandans who worked for the Burundian government before they returned home in 1994 have denounced a recent Rwandan government decision to give them back their pension contributions instead of paying them full pension benefits.

Last week, a Cabinet meeting approved the payment modality of pension contributions transferred to Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB) from the Government of Burundi for Rwandan returnees who worked in Burundi.

Against the pensioners’ expectations, the approved payment modality is about giving the pensioners their contributions back instead of pension benefits.

But because the Rwandan government received the pension funds from the Burundian government two years ago, an interest of about 9.5 per cent per year for two years will be added onto the money to be distributed to the pensioners.

The Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Amb. Claver Gatete, told Parliament earlier this month that government was not ready to pay the pensioners their full benefits because the Burundian government sent Kigali only the contributions paid by pensioners without adding the interest accrued on the money over the years.

The government last week resolved to give the pensioners back their contributions instead of committing to giving them their pension as they had expected right from the time Rwanda started negotiating their pension from Burundi in 1997.

"In accordance with Cabinet decision, the Rwandans who worked in Burundi will receive their pension resources sent from Burundi government and the interest from the time the money was received in Rwanda,” Gatete told The New Times last week.

But some 1,800 pensioners who worked for the Burundian government and have been approved by the Rwandan government as eligible for pension resources are against receiving contributions instead of pension benefits.

"It’s unfair. When the Burundian government sent money to Rwanda, the idea was for the government to provide full pension benefits,” said Pierre Claver Kayigi, the spokesperson of Rwandan pensioners who worked in Burundi.

Pensioners ‘disappointed’

Under the payment modality approved by the government last week, 64-year-old Kayigi, who worked for 17 years in Burundi as a secondary school teacher, is likely to receive about Rwf106,000 that he contributed for his retirement instead of being given monthly pension benefits for his retirement for the rest of his life.

"We are very disappointed,” he told The New Times on the sidelines of a meeting with fellow pensioners to consult on the way forward yesterday.

Another retiree who worked in Burundi, 72-year-old Innocent Rwakazina, said he was taken aback by the government decision.

"We have copies of minutes of the meeting where the government committed while negotiating, saying it would give us full pension benefits,” he said.

The contributions of the pensioners amounting to Rwf139 million was sent to Rwanda in October 2013 by the Government of Burundi to pay the former workers’ pension benefits.

But the Director-General of Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB), Jonathan Gatera, said that it would cost government about Rwf16 billion to avail pension benefits to all the 1,800 Rwandans who are former workers in the public service in Burundi.

Gatete told legislators earlier this month that government does not have the money to avail pension benefits to the retirees because the Burundian government refused to send their contributions to Rwanda with the interest the money accumulated over the years.

The money received was contributed by different Rwandans who worked in Burundi as public servants from 1969 to 1994 when they returned home following the country’s liberation.

Under a memorandum of understanding of 1978 between member states of the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (CEPGL), portability of pension benefits between countries is possible.

Member states of the bloc are Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda.

Both Rwakazina and Kayigi challenged Gatete’s claim that the government doesn’t have money to pay their pensions, explaining that what is lacking is political will to do so.

"There is always a solution where there is political will,” Rwakazina said.

Kayigi and other representatives of the 1,800 pensioners told The New Times yesterday that they were going to further push government to give them their pension using different means.

The group said they were even considering legal action or seeking audience with the President.

The retirees have also reported their issue to Parliament.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw