Rafael Morais
Africa-Press – Angola. The plight of public servants. For decades, thousands of government workers dedicated their lives to public service, performing roles of great responsibility and supporting their families with the little they earned. Many held important positions, faced the hardships of daily life, and, even with modest salaries, managed to provide the bare minimum for their households.
It turns out that, upon reaching the long-awaited retirement phase, what should represent a period of dignified and well-deserved rest turns into a veritable nightmare. The transition from salary to pension drastically reduces these citizens’ income, pushing them into extreme poverty. Without purchasing power, many retirees find themselves unable to afford basic needs such as food, healthcare, housing, and education for their remaining dependents.
In the past, there was a practice of granting an additional amount, a sort of compensation or indemnity, which allowed retired workers to start small private ventures. This support, though symbolic, served as a boost to maintaining dignity in old age. Today, this reality seems increasingly distant, leaving retirees to fend for themselves, in a cycle of frustration and abandonment.
The result is clear: professionals who dedicated their youth, energy, and skills to the State now live an old age marked by hardship and uncertainty. Their hard work over many years doesn’t translate into recognition, but rather into a cruel fate of precarious survival, even having to rely on their children for support.
Retirement cannot continue to be synonymous with poverty. In my view, it would be important to rethink social security policies, ensuring that those who have contributed so much to the functioning of the State can live with dignity. To this end, concrete measures need to be discussed and implemented, such as periodic adjustments to pensions, which should track inflation and the real cost of living, ensuring that retirees’ purchasing power does not decline year after year.
To create a supplementary fund to support retirees, considering a special financial compensation mechanism that allows workers, upon retiring, to receive a single amount to invest in small productive initiatives or in their stability.
family. Policies for productive reintegration allow many retirees with physical and intellectual capabilities to remain active. Support programs for micro-businesses or consulting could transform accumulated experience into benefits for society.
Priority in social services, where retirees should have priority in social housing programs, free access to essential medicines, and specialized health care.
Institutional strengthening of social security, with greater transparency in the management of public funds and the fight against corruption, ensuring that resources allocated to pensions reach beneficiaries fairly and in full.
In conclusion, I understand that valuing retirees is valuing the country’s own history. It’s recognizing that every road, every school, every hospital, and even the peace we experience today were built through the efforts of these workers and great soldiers. Retirement should not be the beginning of misery, but rather a time to live with dignity, reaping the fruits of a lifetime of service.
Until social justice is guaranteed for its retirees, it will continue to fuel a cycle of ingratitude and institutionalized poverty. The state owes more than words; it owes dignity, recognition, and real living conditions to those who dedicated everything to public service.
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