Richard Francis, senior director of sovereign ratings at Fitch Ratings: “Colombia’s pension system has been a key area of debate for years with complaints of the low coverage ratio, high fiscal cost and poor replacement rate. The pension system is complex with a public pay-as-you-go defined benefit scheme (comprised of a national pension fund, a local and regional government fund and several special regimes) and a private defined-contribution scheme comprised of private pension funds. Less than 30 percent of the population is covered by Colombia’s system due to the high level of informality and unemployment. Furthermore, the government spends roughly 4 percent of GDP annually on pensions that mainly benefit the middle and upper classes. The net pension replacement rates for Colombia are better than the OECD average, but the amounts vary greatly. Gustavo Petro has called for a multi-pillar pension reform with three components…”