The feedback on pension reform has not been comprehensive, the Pensions Working Group found after the consultation process concluded at the end of August, chairman David Spiteri Gingell said this week.

The muted public feedback on pension reform is currently being analysed to be handed over to the authorities for their decision-making, Mr Spiteri Gingell told a breakfast event on Tuesday.

Addressing a Malta Institute of Management gathering themed ‘The future of pensions’ at the Westin Dragonara Resort, he said: “It is very sad to see that our society has not responded aggressively on an issue that concerns everyone. The working group will be putting its analysis of the feedback to the government, and it is then in the government’s hands to take it forward.”

In a detailed presentation to an audience of bankers, wealth managers, overseas pension schemes operators, and retirement home firms, Mr Spiteri Gingell outlined policy-makers’ limitations as they examined the future of the first pension, the state’s inability to finance a notional defined contribution system, and warned of potential pitfalls as authorities design frameworks for private pensions.

Reiterating his disappointment at the long-drawn debate on the establishment of a third pillar pensions structure, Mr Spiteri Gingell said people were being denied the right of choice to make an investment in their pension. He insisted that whatever the final design of the pension instrument, it had to allow contributors to migrate payments into a second pension seamlessly.

The pensions working group recommended other options to the authorities to complement people’s savings beyond the first and second pension, including ‘locking’ matured life insurance monies and home equity release.

An ensuing panel discussion raised various issues, among them a proposal to make a clear separation between the pensionable age and retirement, administrative burdens on firms, and challenges faced by working mothers.