Prospective candidates for the post of head of the Russian Pension Fund (PFR) before the upcoming merger of social extra-budgetary funds have been named. Izvestia listed the contenders with reference to sources close to the government.
The new structure of the Pension Fund and the Social Insurance Fund may be headed by Deputy Labor Minister Alexei Sklyar, whom sources named the most likely successor. Svetlana Bondarchuk, deputy head of the Federal Tax Service (FTS), is considered another contender for the post.
Also, the post of head of the PFR can be offered to the current head of the Social Insurance Fund (FSS) Andrei Kigim. This assumption was expressed by the vice-rector of the Financial University under the government of the Russian Federation Alexander Safonov. According to him, the head of the FSS has experience in managing a social fund and implementing digitalization projects. Besides him, the current financial ombudsman Yuri Voronin can be considered a suitable candidate, Safonov noted.
On February 11, the head of the Russian Pension Fund (PFR) Maxim Topilin resigned from his post. According to the Kommersant newspaper, citing sources in the federal government, he warned about the dismissal of the fund’s employees on Wednesday, February 10, without naming a successor.
In the government of Medvedev, Topilin served as Minister of Labor. With the arrival of the new Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, Topilin was transferred to the RPF. Topilin headed the Ministry of Labor since 2012, before that he served as Deputy Minister of Health and Social Development.
Among other things, Topilin advocated raising the retirement age and said that it was necessary to balance the budget of the Russian Pension Fund. If the existing system is preserved, according to the minister, the FIU will not be able to cope with the number of pensioners – there will be an imbalance between the size of payments and insurance contributions.