President Chegi thought that the temporary pension increase, which went into effect this Saturday, created the illusion of more earnings, but it was a scam, claiming that the government returned what should have been allocated last year.
“This increase in pensions is a scam,” Andre Ventura said, believing it was “a return of what should have been given when the government changed the calculation formula in the last update it made.”
The Chega leader spoke during a trip to Casa de Saúde São João de Deus in Funchal, a referral institution for psychiatry, mental health and psychosocial rehabilitation in Madeira, as part of a two-day visit to the Autonomous Region (Friday, Thursday and today) to be introduced by the head of the party list in legislative elections scheduled for September or October.
“Many people have the illusion that they will earn more, not only because we had new IRS tables, the withholding tax has decreased, which means that people will feel like they have more money in their pockets, but also because that we had to enter this Saturday a measure of the proposed increase in pensions,” he said.
However, Andre Ventura reiterated that António Costa’s socialist government is only “returning what it should have already allocated last year”, stressing that when the new pension formula was announced, the opposition classified it as a “fraud”.
“Today it’s a scam,” he said, stressing that “the government still hasn’t given a penny to pensioners and those who have retired on disability.”
The temporary 3.57% pension increase announced by the government in April came into effect this Saturday.
The new update, which follows the increase applied in January, covers disability and old-age pensions under the general social security system and the converged social protection system granted before January 1, 2023, with an increase of 3.57%, calculated on the basis of The amount of the pension in December 2022.