The Minister of Finance, Ricardo Bonilla, and of Labor, Gloria Ramírez, are expected to attend the debate on the initiative, which must pass two discussions in the Commission to become law.

The bill seeks the creation of a public savings fund to protect the payment of pensions and a single Comprehensive Old Age Protection System. It also proposes increasing protection coverage for the elderly through three mechanisms: solidarity income, life annuity, and pension, and the elimination of extreme poverty in the elderly population in Colombia, since it is estimated that two million 600 thousand elderly adults will be beneficiaries through solidarity income until their death.

In Colombia, only one in four people reach retirement age with the right to a fair pension, and only one in eight women receive a pension. Pension coverage reaches only 24 percent of the population, as President Gustavo Petro recently denounced.

The president asserted that Colombia has the second-highest level of inequality in old age in Latin America, surpassed only by Haiti.

jrr/llp/lam/ifs