It is okay if Prime Minister Robert Golob attends a consultation for a better future for animals; we agree that all animals deserve to be treated humanely. What is worrying are his priorities, especially when we realise that the daily cost of taking care of one animal in a shelter is higher than a day’s cost of a farmer’s pension.
“The cost of caring for a dog in a shelter in Ljubljana costs the state between 15 euros and 21 euros per day (according to an article in the Dnevnik newspaper on the 31st of January 2023). A farmer’s pension costs the state 380 euros a month, or 12 euros a day,” wrote political analyst Tomaž Štih on Facebook. We also checked the shelter costs ourselves and found this to be true, which is worrying, as last year, the lowest recorded ordinary pension was just 280 euros a month, which is less than 10 euros per day. This is not only sad, but also shameful.
Before the pension payments for January, which were made on the last day of January, the Pension and Disability insurance Institute of Slovenia had reminded us that the amounts of pensions would be lower again. In fact, pensions and disability allowances were 4.5 percent higher than usual in November and December, on the basis of the law on emergency measures to increase pensioners’ incomes, but this was not an adjustment of pensions, the Institute explained. Many pensioners who received their pension payment on the last day of January were not only surprised by the amount of their pension, but they will also be surprised to learn that the state gives more for a dog’s daily care than for their own.
According to the web portal Cekin.si, the lowest pension paid out last year was 280 euros, or 9.3 euros per day. According to the latest law on amendments and additions to the Pension and Disability Insurance Act (ZPIZ-2), the minimum pension of farmers insured for a smaller range of rights who have reached full pensionable age should be 405.64 euros, which is 13.5 euros per day. In contrast, the daily care fee for a small dog at the Ljubljana Animal Shelter costs 15.88 euros, and the fee for a larger dog is 21.18 euros.
It is not a problem that the Government cares about animals, but the problem arises with these figures. When people who have worked, toiled, and contributed to the state budget all their lives, are worth less than a dog in the end. And in addition, Golob has shown many times in the past that pensioners are not important to him, this is just one more indicator – in black and white.
Ana Horvat
