By Jun Ji-hye
A task force comprising government officials, civil servants and experts agreed Friday on a bill that would require public officials to contribute more to, and receive less, in pension payments.
The agreement calls for raising the contribution rates from the current 7 percent to 9 percent over the next five years while curtailing the entitlement rate from 1.9 to 1.7 percent gradually over the next two decades.
The task force was made up of two government officials, three civil service representatives and four experts recommended by the ruling and opposition parties.
If agreed on by the floor leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), the bill will be presented to a National Assembly special committee for review prior to being forwarded to the Assembly.
If it is passed in a parliamentary vote, a civil servant whose monthly salary is 3 million won ($2,800) will need to pay a 270,000 won pension premium per month, up from the current 210,000 won.
The pension amount they receive after retirement will also drop to 1.53 million won from 1.71 million won.
The civil servants pension fund has been facing a crisis with a snowballing deficit of 12 trillion won ($11 billion) until 2014. Previous presidents have avoided reform, wary of the strong repercussions from civil servants. President Park Geun-hye has been calling for cooperation in reforming the pension, citing that the government needs to spend some 10 billion won per day to compensate for the deficit.
Rival parties agreed to launch the task force in early April to help settle differences of opinions among lawmakers on the special committee tasked with finalizing reform measures.
Tens of thousands of unionized public workers attended rallies held in downtown Seoul on May Day, Friday, to protest the reform.
The pension bill has been the trickiest issue and political parties have been weighing public opinion ahead of the general election next year.