Selfish…!!

Al-Tahir Sati

Ibrahim Adlan, the former director of the Civil Aviation Authority, is urging the government to raise the retirement age to 70 — he argues it would ensure institutional stability and that accumulated experience cannot be replaced. I fear the government may accept Adlan’s request, especially since some of its members are approaching the age of our Prophet Noah.

What is regrettable about Adlan’s proposal is that it is not based on studies or scientific criteria; he simply wants the retirement age raised because he wants it raised — end of story. This is precisely what happened in January 2015, when Bashir’s Council of Ministers increased the retirement age to 65 merely to appease the empowerment leaders in the Workers’ Union — with no scientific or economic basis and no rational justification.

When the activists who supported Hamdok moved to dismantle the empowerment network, I urged them to revisit the retirement age, pointing out that it had been raised to 65 without study and only to enable certain party stalwarts to control the civil service and the unions. I also called on them to review public-sector personnel files using professional criteria, and to remove those who did not meet the conditions for appointment or promotion.

Entrenchment (tamkeen) within the public service is a form of administrative corruption and should have been removed fairly — that is, by displacing those who are unqualified for their positions according to service regulations. But Hamdok’s fools would hear nothing but the sound of their own folly; they rampaged like bulls in a china shop, separating the competent from the incompetent arbitrarily.

The point is: there are established criteria for setting the retirement age which Adlan has ignored. These include population size and the proportion of youth, economic growth and employment opportunities for young people, nutritional culture and its health implications. The advocates of tamkeen turned a blind eye to these criteria previously, and Adlan is repeating that mistake now.

Demographic data show that Sudan is a young country: youth make up more than 60 percent of the population. This youthful energy is a treasure that countries with low population growth lack. Yet in our country, despite the high share of young people, the retirement age was raised to 65 — and Adlan now wants it raised to 70.

Then there is the economic argument. The country is devastated by war, corruption and mismanagement. Job opportunities for graduates — who number in the thousands each year — have not merely shrunk; they have vanished. Ignoring this reality, the retirement age was raised before, and Adlan now calls for an even larger increase.

This is not a matter of whims or simple requests — there are objective standards. We can understand making exceptions for rare, indispensable individuals through laws that retain them past retirement age. But how can anyone rationally justify immortalizing the entire public workforce with a decision that destroys young people’s hopes and tramples their rights?

In neighboring Egypt, those criteria were followed: the retirement age was raised to 65, but gradually — one year added in 2032, then one additional year every two years until 65 is fully reached in 2040. In our land of absurdity, however, it was increased by five years in one fell swoop, without study or standards — and now some are demanding even more.

If Ibrahim Adlan’s proposal is accepted, all scientific and international standards will have been swept aside. The retirement age will become 70, and the youth will be left to take up arms, to risk their lives in leaking boats, to fall into drugs, or to tend livestock in the Gulf.