During a meeting of the Shoura Council on Tuesday, members rejected a recommendation by council member Prince Khaled bin Abudullah Al-Saud to allow government employees to retire at the age of 55. The members said that the Pension Agency is already threatened with bankruptcy and that the government would lose valuable expertise in the fields of engineering and medicine if the recommendation were to be approved.

Prince Khaled had also demanded that the council approve the early retirement system with paying pension entitlements for the remaining period until the actual retirement age.

Confusion prevailed during the discussion on the Public Pension Agency’s report in the council after another recommendation for the merger of institutions and systems of social insurance and pensions together in a single unified system was rejected.

However, Shoura member Mastoura Al-Shamari, who submitted the recommendation, said that she has the right to maintain the proposal insisting that the merger of the two establishments had been earlier approved by a ministerial committee and the Public Administration Institute.

“The recommendation is in line with the systems in many advanced countries of the world and such a merger will reduce government expenditure. It may even solve the problem of social insurance and pension institutions facing bankruptcy in the coming years,” said Al-Shamri.

She added that insurance companies could benefit from the increasing shares of investors and the whole process will be in the best interest of the citizens in the long term and improve their living standards.

The recommendation was rejected on the grounds that the two institutions already serve employees in two different sectors of business: the government and the private sector.