Deploy from mauritius-budget-pensions/app

wiki/entities/state-age-pension-sap.md

@@ -1,54 +1,76 @@
----
-type: entity
-title: "State Age Pension (SAP) — Proposed, Not Yet Law"
-tags: [mauritius-pensions, pension-reform, entity]
-sources:
-  - "[[../references/2026-2027-budget-pensions]]"
-summary: >-
-  The proposed renaming and restructuring of the Basic Retirement
-  Pension, announced in the 2026-2027 budget speech, effective 1
-  January 2027 if enacted. A means test component was reversed within
-  days of the announcement. As of this project's research date, this
-  is a policy proposal under active parliamentary debate, not law.
-provenance:
-  extracted: 0.7
-  inferred: 0.1
-  ambiguous: 0.3
-base_confidence: 0.4
-lifecycle: draft
-lifecycle_changed: 2026-08-03
-agents: [claude]
-consensus_score: 45
-up: "[[../concepts/mauritius-pension-system-overview]]"
-topics: [mauritius-pensions, pension-reform]
-created: 2026-08-03
-updated: 2026-08-03
----
-
-# State Age Pension (SAP)
-
-**Status: PROPOSED, NOT YET LAW as of this project's research date (2026-08-03).** Every fact below describes a government announcement and live parliamentary debate, not enacted legislation. Do not present any figure here as a "current" pension amount.
-
-## What It Is (If Enacted As Described)
-
-The Basic Retirement Pension, renamed and restructured, proposed effective **1 January 2027**. Announced in the 2026-2027 budget speech by a government that took office 10 November 2024 (see [[../references/2024-2025-budget-pensions]] for the verified election date), following a reform process the same government began in its prior (2025-2026) budget.
-
-## Key Proposed Features
-
-- Employment status no longer an eligibility factor — age only.
-- "All so-called CSG pension allowances will be consolidated into SAP" — proposing to end the additive BRP+CSG structure described in [[../concepts/basic-retirement-pension-vs-csg-retirement-benefit]].
-- A means test (Rs 14,000 income threshold, tapering to a Rs 50,000 cutoff, minimum Rs 1,000) — **announced, then reversed 3 days later** (22 June 2026 formal statement) following public backlash, with a stated Rs 6.2 billion / 0.7% GDP fiscal cost. Confirmed still reversed as of the most recent data this project has (28 July 2026).
-- Flexible draw age 60-70, with reduction for early draw / augmentation for deferral — the augmentation rate is stated as 9%/year past 65 in parliamentary debate, but whether this mechanism itself survived the means-test reversal is **unclear** — a PM-chaired committee was still actively studying "adjustments" to it as of 7 July 2026.
-- A base full-SAP amount repeatedly quoted in debate as **Rs 11,589** — explicitly stated by the responsible Minister, on direct question, to still be pending Ministry of Finance methodology confirmation. Not a finalized number.
-- Couples: up to 25% reduction of combined SAP, subject to a means test (status post-reversal unclear).
-
-## Full Story
-
-See [[../references/2026-2027-budget-pensions]] for the complete timeline, including the "Post-Budget Developments" section tracking the parliamentary debate day-by-day, and [[../synthesis/pension-reform-pattern-2016-2020-2025]] for how this reform fits a decade-long recurring pattern.
-
-## Related
-
-- [[../concepts/mauritius-pension-system-overview]]
-- [[contribution-sociale-generalisee-csg]] — the scheme SAP proposes to absorb.
-- [[national-pension-fund-npf]] — the related Tier-2 reform (NPPF) proposed alongside SAP.
-- [[commission-of-experts-2025]] — the body whose recommendations this reform is based on.
+---
+type: entity
+title: "State Age Pension (SAP) — Passed by the National Assembly, Pending Assent"
+tags: [mauritius-pensions, pension-reform, entity]
+sources:
+  - "[[../references/2026-2027-budget-pensions]]"
+  - "[[../references/finance-bill-2026-pension-passage]]"
+summary: >-
+  The renaming and restructuring of the Basic Retirement Pension,
+  announced in the 2026-2027 budget speech and enacted in substance by
+  clause 12 of the Finance Bill (No. XII of 2026), which the National
+  Assembly passed at third reading on 31 July 2026. SAP sits at new
+  sections 3A/3B/3C of the National Pensions Act and takes effect from
+  1 January 2027. The means test was removed from the Bill, not merely
+  frozen. Presidential assent and commencement are not yet evidenced by
+  this project.
+provenance:
+  extracted: 0.85
+  inferred: 0.08
+  ambiguous: 0.07
+base_confidence: 0.7
+lifecycle: draft
+lifecycle_changed: 2026-08-19
+agents: [claude]
+consensus_score: 70
+up: "[[../concepts/mauritius-pension-system-overview]]"
+topics: [mauritius-pensions, pension-reform]
+created: 2026-08-03
+updated: 2026-08-19
+---
+
+# State Age Pension (SAP)
+
+**Status: PASSED BY THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY on 31 July 2026, pending assent (as of 2026-08-19).** This is a change from this page's previous status of "proposed, not yet law", which was accurate only up to this project's earlier research date of 2026-08-03.
+
+The enacting vehicle is **clause 12 of the Finance Bill (No. XII of 2026)**, which amends the National Pensions Act. See [[../references/finance-bill-2026-pension-passage]] for the verbatim provisions and page-level citations.
+
+**[VERIFY] Still do not call this "the law".** This project has evidence of passage by the Assembly, from an *unrevised* Hansard. It has **not** obtained the assented Finance Act 2026, and has no evidence of Presidential assent, publication, or a commencement date. Amounts below remain projections, not entitlements — do not present any figure here as a "current" pension amount.
+
+## What It Is
+
+The Basic Retirement Pension, renamed and restructured, effective **1 January 2027**. Announced in the 2026-2027 budget speech by a government that took office 10 November 2024 (see [[../references/2024-2025-budget-pensions]] for the verified election date), following a reform process the same government began in its prior (2025-2026) budget.
+
+## Key Features, By Evidentiary Status
+
+**Now in the passed Bill** (per [[../references/finance-bill-2026-pension-passage]]):
+
+- **Section 3** amended so existing BRP pensioners keep being paid, while new pensioners come in under SAP.
+- **Section 3A** — transition periods for persons attaining 60 on or after 1 January 2026; those reaching 60 during 2026 become eligible from 1 January 2027.
+- **Section 3B** — SAP for persons attaining 60 on or after 1 December 2029. *(A gap between 3A's stated end of 31 August 2029 and this date is flagged `[VERIFY]` on the reference page.)*
+- **Section 3C** — increments at 65, 75, 90 and 100 preserved via the Twelfth Schedule, **plus** an increase every January "by such rate as may be prescribed, taking into consideration the cost of living of the previous year". The government characterises the annual increase as guaranteed and only its *rate* as discretionary.
+- **A Steering Committee on Pension Reform**, to consult on an Independent Pensions Regulatory Authority and a Central Pensions Administration Bureau.
+- **The means test is not in the Bill.** Previously tracked here as "reversed, status unclear"; the Prime Minister confirmed on 31 July 2026 that it was removed outright, at a stated cost of Rs 6.2 billion.
+
+**Announced but with no enacting provision found:**
+
+- Consolidation of "all so-called CSG pension allowances" into SAP — proposed in the budget speech; this project has not located the clause that effects it, and has not verified it against the passed Bill. See [[../concepts/basic-retirement-pension-vs-csg-retirement-benefit]] for the additive structure it would end.
+- **NPPF** (the Tier-2 reform, 1 July 2027) — explicitly *excluded* from the Finance Bill and deferred to further consultation.
+- Couples' combined-SAP reduction of up to 25% — was tied to the means test; with the means test removed, its status is **unresolved** and unaddressed in the 31 July sitting.
+
+**Superseded or unreliable:**
+
+- Employment status no longer an eligibility factor — age only. *(From the budget speech; not re-verified against the Bill.)*
+- Flexible draw age 60-70 with reduction for early draw and augmentation for deferral. Section 3C refers to a person's "election" under 3A or 3B, which is consistent with an opt-in draw age, but this project has not seen the clause setting the rates. The 9%/year augmentation figure quoted in earlier debate is **not confirmed** in the passed text.
+- The base full-SAP figure of **Rs 11,589** quoted repeatedly in earlier debate is superseded as a planning number by the Minister's 31 July worked examples (Rs 13,764 at 60 for a person aged 55 in 2026, assuming 3.5% inflation). Both are projections; neither is a schedule amount.
+
+## Full Story
+
+See [[../references/finance-bill-2026-pension-passage]] for the passage itself, and [[../references/2026-2027-budget-pensions]] for the complete timeline including the day-by-day parliamentary debate before passage, and [[../synthesis/pension-reform-pattern-2016-2020-2025]] for how this reform fits a decade-long recurring pattern.
+
+## Related
+
+- [[../concepts/mauritius-pension-system-overview]]
+- [[contribution-sociale-generalisee-csg]] — the scheme SAP proposes to absorb.
+- [[national-pension-fund-npf]] — the related Tier-2 reform (NPPF), which did *not* pass with this Bill.
+- [[commission-of-experts-2025]] — the body whose recommendations this reform is based on.

wiki/references/2026-2027-budget-pensions.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 type: reference
-title: "2026-2027 Budget — Pension Reform Package (Proposed, Not Yet Legislated)"
+title: "2026-2027 Budget — Pension Reform Package (As Announced; Since Passed by the Assembly)"
 tags: [mauritius, budget-2026-2027, pensions, csg, pension-reform, evidence-based]
 sources:
   - "Resources/budget-speeches/2026-2027_budget-speech.pdf"
@@ -14,35 +14,40 @@ sources:
   - "Resources/parliamentary-debates/2026-07-14_debate-23.pdf"
   - "Resources/parliamentary-debates/2026-07-21_debate-24.pdf"
   - "Resources/parliamentary-debates/2026-07-28_debate-25.pdf"
+  - "[[finance-bill-2026-pension-passage]]"
 summary: >-
   A complete pension-system overhaul announced by the new government
   (elected November 2024): BRP renamed "State Age Pension" (SAP), CSG
   allowances consolidated into SAP, NPF renamed NPPF, reforms to
   civil-service and public-official pensions. UPDATE: the means-test
   component was reversed 3 days after the budget speech (22 June formal
-  statement), confirmed in Parliament and still in effect as of the most recent
-  session (28 July 2026) -- see Post-Budget Developments below. Nothing
-  here is yet enacted legislation.
+  statement), and then removed outright from the Finance Bill, which the
+  National Assembly passed at third reading on 31 July 2026 -- see
+  Post-Budget Developments below and [[finance-bill-2026-pension-passage]].
+  This page records what the budget speech proposed; the passage page
+  records what was actually enacted.
 provenance:
   extracted: 0.95
   inferred: 0.05
   ambiguous: 0.0
 base_confidence: 0.5
 lifecycle: draft
-lifecycle_changed: 2026-08-03
+lifecycle_changed: 2026-08-19
 agents: [claude]
 consensus_score: 55
 up: ""
 topics: [mauritius-pensions, csg, pension-reform]
 created: 2026-08-03
-updated: 2026-08-03
+updated: 2026-08-19
 ---
 
 # 2026-2027 Budget — Pension Reform Package
 
 Source: [2026-2027 Budget Speech](https://nationalbudget2026.govmu.org/), delivered ~June 2026 (`Resources/budget-speeches/2026-2027_budget-speech.pdf`), paragraphs 288-336.
 
-**Critical framing note, unlike every prior year in this project:** the 2010-2025 budget years described benefit changes to an *already-legislated* system, verifiable against Acts already in force. This budget instead **announces a package of reforms not yet enacted into law** — no Act exists yet for most of what follows. Every claim below is what the government *proposes*; none of it has been independently cross-verified against legislation, because the legislation doesn't exist yet at the time of writing. This is fundamentally different evidentiary status from the 2021-2024 pages in this project and should never be presented to a reader as settled law.
+> **UPDATE 2026-08-19 — the enacting legislation now exists.** The National Assembly passed the Finance Bill (No. XII of 2026) at third reading on **31 July 2026**; its clause 12 amends the National Pensions Act to bring in SAP, and the means test is **not** in it. See [[finance-bill-2026-pension-passage]] for the verbatim provisions. The framing below was written on 2026-08-03, before that sitting was read, and is retained as the record of what the *budget speech* proposed. Where this page and the passage page differ, **the passage page governs**. Assent and commencement are still not evidenced.
+
+**Critical framing note, unlike every prior year in this project:** the 2010-2025 budget years described benefit changes to an *already-legislated* system, verifiable against Acts already in force. This budget instead **announces a package of reforms not yet enacted into law** — no Act existed at the time of writing for most of what follows. Every claim below is what the government *proposes*; none of it has been independently cross-verified against legislation, because the legislation doesn't exist yet at the time of writing. This is fundamentally different evidentiary status from the 2021-2024 pages in this project and should never be presented to a reader as settled law.
 
 ## Political Context
 
@@ -71,7 +76,9 @@ A new government took office following elections in November 2024 (para 289) —
 
 ## Why Nothing Here Is Cross-Verified (and shouldn't be presented as settled)
 
-Unlike every other page in this project, **there is no Act to check this against yet.** The stated effective dates (1 January 2027 for SAP, 1 July 2027 for NPPF, 1 July 2026 for the Presidential pension taxability change) are all still in the future relative to this budget speech and this project's research date (2026-08-03). Between the budget speech and actual enactment, provisions routinely change — this project's own tracing of the 2021 CSG reform through 3 further Finance Acts (2022, 2023, 2024) is direct evidence that budget-announced numbers are not final numbers. **Any claim about SAP/NPPF presented to an end user must be clearly labeled as "proposed, as of the June 2026 Budget Speech" and updated the moment enacting legislation is found.**
+> **Superseded in part, 2026-08-19.** A Bill now exists and has passed the Assembly — see [[finance-bill-2026-pension-passage]], which cross-verifies SAP against clause 12 of the Finance Bill (No. XII of 2026). What remains true is that this project holds **no assented Act**, so "passed by the Assembly, pending assent" is the correct label, not "settled law". The NPPF portion genuinely still has no enacting provision: it was deliberately left out of the Bill.
+
+Unlike every other page in this project, **there was no Act to check this against at the time of writing.** The stated effective dates (1 January 2027 for SAP, 1 July 2027 for NPPF, 1 July 2026 for the Presidential pension taxability change) are all still in the future relative to this budget speech and this project's research date (2026-08-03). Between the budget speech and actual enactment, provisions routinely change — this project's own tracing of the 2021 CSG reform through 3 further Finance Acts (2022, 2023, 2024) is direct evidence that budget-announced numbers are not final numbers. **Any claim about SAP/NPPF presented to an end user must be clearly labeled as "proposed, as of the June 2026 Budget Speech" and updated the moment enacting legislation is found.**
 
 ## Post-Budget Developments — Parliamentary Debate Tracking (updated 2026-08-03, all 13 sessions read)
 

wiki/references/cabinet-communiques-pension-reform.md

@@ -7,28 +7,32 @@ sources:
   - "Resources/cabinet-communiques/2025-06-17-public-pension-reform-communique.pdf"
   - "Resources/cabinet-communiques/2025-07-04-cabinet-highlights.pdf"
   - "Resources/cabinet-communiques/2026-07-24-cabinet-highlights.pdf"
+  - "Resources/cabinet-communiques/Highlights_of_Cabinet_Meeting_Friday_07_August_2026.pdf"
+  - "Resources/cabinet-communiques/Highlights_of_Cabinet_Meeting_Friday_14_August_2026.pdf"
 summary: >-
   First pass at the new Cabinet Communiqués source category (Prime
-  Minister's Office, pmo.govmu.org). Four documents downloaded and
+  Minister's Office, pmo.govmu.org). Six documents downloaded and
   cross-checked; two contain substantive new pension-reform detail not
   previously in this project's corpus (the PM's own fiscal-sustainability
   case for BRP reform, and the concrete Rs 10,000 Income Support
-  transition mechanism), one corroborates an existing finding, one has no
+  transition mechanism), one corroborates an existing finding, one flags
+  a review of Invalid's Basic Pension medical guidelines, and two have no
   pension content. NOT an exhaustive sweep of PMO communiqués -- a
-  targeted first pass, see Coverage Honesty below.
+  targeted pass over 6 of the 35 documents now on disk, see Coverage
+  Honesty below.
 provenance:
   extracted: 0.9
   inferred: 0.08
   ambiguous: 0.02
 base_confidence: 0.7
 lifecycle: draft
-lifecycle_changed: 2026-08-03
+lifecycle_changed: 2026-08-19
 agents: [claude]
 consensus_score: 65
 up: ""
 topics: [mauritius-pensions, pension-reform, cabinet-communiques]
 created: 2026-08-03
-updated: 2026-08-03
+updated: 2026-08-19
 ---
 
 # Cabinet Communiqués — Pension Reform Primary Sources (2024-2026)
@@ -37,7 +41,7 @@ New source category, per [[../synthesis/planned-source-architecture]] item 2 (Fr
 
 ## Coverage Honesty
 
-**This is a first pass, not exhaustive.** The PMO publishes a Cabinet Decisions highlights document most Fridays going back years; this project has downloaded and read exactly 4, chosen because they surfaced in targeted searches for pension-related terms. There is no automated sync (contrary to the `/api/cabinet/sync` roadmap in [[../synthesis/planned-source-architecture]] — that remains unbuilt). Many weeks between and around these 4 dates have not been checked at all.
+**This is a first pass, not exhaustive.** The PMO publishes a Cabinet Decisions highlights document most Fridays going back years; this project has downloaded and read exactly 6 (4 in the 2026-08-03 first pass, plus the 7 and 14 August 2026 meetings added by the automated sync and distilled on 2026-08-19). Note that 35 Cabinet PDFs now sit in `Resources/cabinet-communiques/` — the sync downloads far more than has been read, so **29 of them remain entirely undistilled**. An automated *download* sync now exists (GitHub Action, first run 2026-08-08), which supersedes this page's earlier statement that there was none; the `/api/cabinet/sync` endpoint in [[../synthesis/planned-source-architecture]] remains unbuilt, and the *reading* is still entirely manual. Many weeks between and around these 6 dates have not been checked at all.
 
 ## 1. Public Statement on Budget 2025-2026 — Pension Reform (17 June 2025)
 
@@ -84,6 +88,24 @@ Corroborates, doesn't add new information to, an existing finding: a **14th Mont
 
 **Honest negative result.** Downloaded specifically because its date falls inside the means-test-reversal saga window this project has tracked via Hansard (22 June 2026 reversal, still in effect as of 28 July 2026 per [[../references/2026-2027-budget-pensions]]) — on the hypothesis that a Cabinet communiqué from this period might corroborate or add detail to the parliamentary account. It does not: this week's Cabinet meeting covered unrelated matters (implementation status of 73 UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recommendations, among others). The only pension-adjacent mention is the Minister of Social Integration, Social Security and National Solidarity's name appearing as a committee member for the disability-rights implementation committee — not substantive pension content. `[VERIFY]` / minor anomaly: the document (dated 24 July 2026) states an "Inter-Ministerial Committee was set up in November 2026" — a date after the document's own date. Not resolved in this pass; could be a source document typo (e.g. intended "November 2025") or reflect this project's own date-extraction error. Not pension-relevant either way, so not pursued further.
 
+## 5. Cabinet Highlights — 7 August 2026
+
+`Resources/cabinet-communiques/Highlights_of_Cabinet_Meeting_Friday_07_August_2026.pdf` — downloaded 2026-08-08 by the automated sync from `pmo.govmu.org/CabinetDecision/2026/`.
+
+One pension item, at agenda item 9 — the only pension content in the document:
+
+> "Cabinet has taken note that the Ministry of Social Integration, Social Security and National Solidarity is currently reviewing the medical guidelines for the allocation of Invalid's Basic Pension, in consultation with the Ministry of Finance and the Attorney-General's Office."
+
+This is the first appearance of **Invalid's Basic Pension** anywhere in this project. It is a distinct non-contributory benefit from the BRP/SAP line this project has tracked, and the review is of *medical eligibility guidelines*, not of rates. Nothing here connects it to the SAP reform, and this project should not assume a connection — it is recorded as a new, separate thread. No outcome, timeline, or direction of change is stated.
+
+## 6. Cabinet Highlights — 14 August 2026
+
+`Resources/cabinet-communiques/Highlights_of_Cabinet_Meeting_Friday_14_August_2026.pdf` — downloaded 2026-08-15 by the automated sync.
+
+**No pension content.** Checked with word-boundary matching against pension/BRP/CSG/NPF/NPPF/retirement terms: zero hits. The 11 agenda items cover the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a Prime Ministerial visit, the State Trading Corporation, a fisheries protocol, a school naming, vessel monitoring, a health proposal, land transport, the penalty points system, education, and an international participation. Recorded explicitly so the absence is not re-investigated.
+
+Notably, this is the first Cabinet meeting **after** the Finance Bill's passage on 31 July 2026 ([[finance-bill-2026-pension-passage]]) for which this project holds a document, and it contains **no** reference to assent, commencement, or implementation of the pension reform. That is an absence of evidence, not evidence of absence — the Cabinet highlights are a summary document, not a complete record.
+
 ## What This Changes Elsewhere
 
 - [[../entities/commission-of-experts-2025]]: earlier anchor point for the Commission's establishment (in motion by 4 July 2025, not just "set up by the 2025-2026 budget speech" — the budget speech and this Cabinet decision are close in time but the Cabinet decision is the more precise administrative act).

wiki/references/finance-bill-2026-pension-passage.md

@@ -0,0 +1,111 @@
+---
+type: reference
+title: "Finance Bill 2026 — Passage of the SAP Pension Reform (31 July 2026)"
+tags: [mauritius, hansard, pensions, sap, brp, pension-reform, finance-bill, evidence-based]
+sources:
+  - "Resources/parliamentary-debates/2026_debate-26_auto-synced.pdf"
+  - "Resources/parliamentary-debates/2026_debate-27_auto-synced.pdf"
+summary: >-
+  On Friday 31 July 2026 the National Assembly passed the Finance Bill
+  (No. XII of 2026) and the Economic and Financial Measures
+  (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill (No. XIII of 2026) at third reading.
+  Clause 12 amends the National Pensions Act: it retires the BRP,
+  inserts the State Age Pension at new sections 3A/3B/3C, and for the
+  first time writes an annual cost-of-living increase into the law. The
+  means test is not in the Bill -- the PM confirmed it was removed, not
+  merely frozen. This moves SAP from "proposed" to "passed by the
+  Assembly"; assent and commencement are NOT evidenced here.
+provenance:
+  extracted: 0.93
+  inferred: 0.05
+  ambiguous: 0.02
+base_confidence: 0.8
+lifecycle: draft
+lifecycle_changed: 2026-08-19
+agents: [claude]
+consensus_score: 75
+up: "[[../concepts/mauritius-pension-system-overview]]"
+topics: [mauritius-pensions, pension-reform, hansard]
+created: 2026-08-19
+updated: 2026-08-19
+---
+
+# Finance Bill 2026 — Passage of the SAP Pension Reform (31 July 2026)
+
+Source: `Resources/parliamentary-debates/2026_debate-26_auto-synced.pdf` — Hansard No. 26 of 2026, Eighth National Assembly, First Session, **Friday 31 July 2026 (UNREVISED)**, downloaded 2026-08-08 from `mauritiusassembly.govmu.org` (see `Resources/download-log.tsv`).
+
+This page closes the largest open question in [[2026-2027-budget-pensions]] and [[../entities/state-age-pension-sap]], both of which were written when no enacting legislation existed.
+
+## The decisive fact
+
+Both Bills completed committee stage and were **read the third time and passed** in this sitting (Hansard p. 118):
+
+> "On motion made and seconded, the following Bills were read the third time and passed -
+> (a) The Finance Bill (No. XII of 2026)
+> (b) The Economic and Financial Measures (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill (No. XIII of 2026)."
+
+**[VERIFY] Passed is not the same as in force.** This Hansard evidences passage by the National Assembly only. It does not evidence Presidential assent, publication as an Act, or a commencement date. Until this project obtains the assented Finance Act 2026, SAP should be described as *"passed by the National Assembly on 31 July 2026, pending assent"* — not as "the law". The document is also marked **UNREVISED**, so wording may change in the revised Hansard.
+
+## Clause 12 — National Pensions Act amended
+
+Clause 12 is the operative pension clause. An Opposition characterisation (Hansard p. 47) that the government did not dispute:
+
+> "Clause 12 does the real work of this Bill. It retires the Basic Retirement Pension, brings in the State Age Pension, sets new residency and eligibility rules, and hence, a Steering Committee to the task of sorting out the rest later."
+
+The **Minister of Financial Services and Economic Planning (Dr Ms J. Jeetun)** set out the amendments to the National Pensions Act (Hansard pp. 73-75):
+
+1. **Section 3** — amended "to ensure the continuity of payments of the existing BRP to existing pensioners and payment of pension to new pensioners under the new State Age Pension (SAP)."
+2. **New section 3A — State Age Pension.** Three transition periods for persons attaining 60 on or after 01 January 2026. Those attaining 60 on or after 01 January 2026 but before 31 December 2026 become eligible from **01 January 2027**; then "on or after 01 January 2027 but before 31 August 2029."
+3. **New section 3B** — SAP for persons attaining 60 **on or after 01 December 2029**.
+4. **New section 3C** — increase in SAP (text below).
+5. **Steering Committee on Pension Reform** — added to the Act, to take "reflections, inputs and consultations" on an **Independent Pensions Regulatory Authority** and a **Central Pensions Administration Bureau**.
+
+**[VERIFY] A gap in the stated transition dates.** As transcribed, section 3A runs to *31 August 2029* while 3B starts *01 December 2029*, leaving September-November 2029 unaccounted for. This may be an unrevised-Hansard transcription error rather than a drafting gap — it cannot be resolved without the Bill text itself, which this project does not hold.
+
+## Section 3C as actually enacted
+
+The Prime Minister moved a committee-stage amendment **replacing** the proposed section 3C (Hansard p. 113). This verbatim text is the version that passed, and supersedes any earlier description of the increase mechanism:
+
+> "3C. Increase in State Age Pension
+>
+> Any person referred to in section 3A or 3B who reaches the age of 65, 75, 90 or 100 shall, in accordance with the Twelfth Schedule, be eligible to an increase in his State Age Pension, to be applicable immediately after his election under section 3A or 3B, and be eligible, including a person referred to in section 3, to an increase as from January in the next calendar year, and in every calendar year thereafter, by such rate as may be prescribed, taking into consideration the cost of living of the previous year."
+
+Two consequences the Minister drew out explicitly (Hansard p. 74):
+
+- The existing age-based increments at **65, 75, 90 and 100** are preserved under SAP, via the Twelfth Schedule.
+- The **annual January cost-of-living readjustment is now in the statute** — claimed as a first: *"it is the first time, for pensioners, that such a disposition will be included in the law of Mauritius."*
+
+On the much-debated "may": the Minister's position is that the discretion attaches to the rate, not to whether an increase happens — *"it is not the fact of the increase which is subject to 'may be'. It is only the actual rate to be prescribed which is subject to the 'may'."* That is the government's reading of its own drafting, recorded here as such; the text itself says "by such rate as may be prescribed."
+
+## The means test: removed, not frozen
+
+[[2026-2027-budget-pensions]] tracked the means test as *announced, then frozen on 22 June 2026, status post-reversal unclear*. The Prime Minister settled it in this sitting (Hansard p. 103):
+
+> "We decided to remove the means test because everybody seemed to be against it. So, we listened. ... But in any case, we removed it."
+
+He restated the fiscal consequence — *"for the means testing ... the additional cost is Rs6.2 billion"* — consistent with the Rs 6.2bn / 0.7% GDP figure this project already recorded from 25 June, 14 July and 21 July 2026. He then named **five committees** set up to close that gap (Hansard pp. 103-104): a Savings Committee; re-prioritisation of capital projects; disposal of non-strategic assets; review of the tax system; review of statutory bodies.
+
+This is a genuine status upgrade: "frozen" (a policy pause that could be reversed) becomes "absent from the enacting Bill" (a legislative fact). The wider Rs 30bn/Rs 40bn opposition shortfall claim recorded in [[2026-2027-budget-pensions]] remains **unreconciled** — nothing in this sitting resolves it.
+
+## Illustrative SAP amounts — government projections, not entitlements
+
+The Minister gave worked examples (Hansard p. 74), explicitly assuming **3.5% inflation**, "a figure proposed by the Bank of Mauritius and the IMF":
+
+| Age in 2026 | Draws at 60 | Draws at 63 | Draws at 65 |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| 55 | Rs 13,764 | Rs 19,188 | Rs 23,352 |
+| 25 | Rs 38,661 | — | Rs 65,546 |
+
+These are **projections under an assumed inflation path**, given orally in debate to rebut a claim that no figures had been circulated. They are not schedule amounts and must never be presented to a reader as what someone will receive. The Rs 38,661 / Rs 65,546 pair for a 25-year-old is transcribed as "will earn Rs38,661 and Rs65,546" without the second age being stated; read here as draw-at-60 and draw-at-65 by analogy with the preceding example — **inferred, not stated**.
+
+## What was explicitly left out of the Bill
+
+The **National Pension Provident Fund (NPPF)** provisions are *not* in the Finance Bill. Per the Minister (Hansard p. 73), the government "decided that the process follows its due course to enable more reflections and consultations," and she cited the PM's guarantee "that no employee will be worse off with the new system of the National Pension Provident Fund." The 1 July 2027 NPPF date recorded in [[2026-2027-budget-pensions]] therefore has **no enacting provision** as of this sitting.
+
+## Coverage Honesty
+
+- This page reads **one** sitting for pension content. The two Bills run to 83 clauses; only clause 12 and the surrounding debate were examined. Other clauses may touch pensions indirectly (for example tax treatment) and have not been checked.
+- The Hansard is **UNREVISED**.
+- Quotations are from `pdftotext -layout` extraction; page numbers are the Hansard's own printed page numbers.
+- The debate is bilingual (English/French); the French passages were read but are not quoted here, and the extraction mangles accented characters.
+- **Tuesday 04 August 2026 (Hansard No. 27, `2026_debate-27_auto-synced.pdf`) contains no pension content at all** — it covers the Wetlands Bill (No. XIV of 2026) first reading and a Kreol Morisien select committee. Checked with word-boundary matching; the only apparent hits were the string "SUSPENSION". Recorded so the absence is not re-investigated.