RECENTLY, pension reform and the retirement age made headlines, but the general response only addressed the issues on a piecemeal fashion and with some misleading facts and figures.
Government expenditure on pension and gratuities was RM25.8bil in 2018. In the same year, expenditure for emolument was RM81.3bil. As a share of total current expenditure, the government is spending about 11% on pensions and 35% on salaries. The same set of numbers represent about 1.8% and 5.6% of our national GDP at current prices.
