Disagreements on how to reform South Korea’s public service pension persisted Wednesday among the main political parties and pensioners, raising fears that long-awaited revisions to the debt-ridden system would lose steam and increase public debt.

Divergent priorities among the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, the governing Saenuri Party and government employees continued to hold down the drawn-out negotiations, despite weeks of debate at the National Assembly.

The continued gridlock also comes despite a consensus that the system must be reformed to address growing debt levels. Korea’s total public and private fiscal liabilities could come to more than 2 quadrillion won ($1.8 trillion), government statistics show.

The NPAD prioritizes expanding the public service pension to widen the social safety net. But its reform proposal has been criticized for lacking specific data. That makes calculating the plan’s effects on public debt and the service pension difficult, the ruling party said.

The Saenuri Party stressed the need to put a cap on the growing government debt, which is estimated at more than 898 trillion won, according to the Finance Ministry. This does not count subsidies to the service pension provided by government coffers.

The governing party proposes decreasing overall pension payments to retired civil servants. The plan would increase pension payments to lower-level and generally less-paid government retirees, while taking away funds for higher-level retirees.

Public officials, the main beneficiaries of the pension, oppose both plans. Instead, they are pushing to maintain current pension levels, although they have expressed a willingness to contribute more to the fund from their monthly paychecks.

Parties previously set May 6 as the deadline for finalizing a reform plan, but the NPAD has recently proposed annulling the date. Its lawmakers say setting a deadline for landmark reforms goes against the public interest. Any reform must be thoroughly discussed, they argue.

But the Saenuri Party and the NPAD’s critics say the main opposition party is just buying time due to the upcoming elections.

On April 29, four parliamentary voting districts will go to the polls. The NPAD is expected to remain lukewarm on the pension reforms until the polls as government workers are considered to be one of its largest political support groups.

“I don’t know what the NPAD is thinking, but they’ve got it all wrong,” said Choi Young-jin, professor of Korean politics at Chung-Ang University in Seoul.

“They seem to be playing a delaying tactic. But such a move is likely to backfire. Government workers are not going to be the largest voting group in the coming elections.

“Besides, the April by-elections are not as important as the 2016 general elections and the 2017 presidential election ― two elections that will be influenced by the pension reforms,” Choi added.

The pension reforms are not expected to have a large economic impact, according to an economist.

“I agree that the issue is a sociopolitical one,” said Kim Wonshik, professor of economics at Konkuk University.

Kim was invited by lawmakers to speak at the parliamentary debates among lawmakers and civil servants as a pension expert.

“Public officials comprise about one to two million of the population (in a country of about 50 million),” Kim said.

“That means decreased pensions are not going to have a denting effect on gross spending, although government spending will obviously decrease.”

By Jeong Hunny (hj257@heraldcorp.com)