GSIS defends retirement fund plan

The Government Service and Insurance System (GSIS) is mandated under Republic Act 8291, its founding charter, to create early retirement program for its employees.

This was explained yesterday by Nilo Racimo, GSIS vice president for corporate affairs, following reports that the Commission on Audit (COA) has voided an early retirement plan pay scheme for GSIS employees for being "morally indefensible" because it contained more benefits that the regular government retirement plan.

The COA report said the GSIS Employees Loyalty Incentive Plan (Elip) which the GSIS board approved last year allowed some of its officials to get as much as P13.5 million in gratuity pay and P94,000 in monthly pension.

Racimo explained that the government pension fund has a legal framework to give and form benefit programs. "In fact, we even designed our employee loyalty incentive program or Elip after Executive Order (EO) 389 and Republic Act (RA)1616," Racimo said.

Racimo said that the GSIS administration under its president, Federico Pascual, designed the ELIP and the GSIS board of directors approved it. – Ted Torres