EPF and EC can do better

The EPF and EC as vanguards of public trust should at all times be accountable to the public.

COMMENT

An English daily dated July 4, 2013 carried the story of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s working visit to Britain wherein he will be launching the Battersea Power Station. It was also mentioned that one of the investors of this said project is the Employees Provident Fund (EPF).

We, the ordinary citizens of Malaysia look forward to this said investment being a sound investment and hope that it will bring good profits in the near future. Many people depend on the EPF upon retirement especially the low-wage earners and the singletons who have no children upon whom to depend on for their financial support.

As EPF will also be investing more in UK, we also want the EPF dividend to revert to the rate of 8% and above as was in the good old days now that the Malaysian economy is robust and thriving as claimed by the BN federal government.

Therefore we earnestly look forward to good news concerning our EPF dividend.

Kudos to the EPF!

However, another public institution that also begins with the alphabet ‘E’ which is in the news recently albeit for the wrong reasons is none other than the Election Commission (EC) due to the fiasco involving the indelible ink which costs RM7.1 million.

DAP’s Seremban MP, Anthony Loke Siew Fook and PAS’ Parit Buntar MP, Mujahid Yusuf have urged the EC to reveal who is the supplier of the indelible ink because this ink has failed in its purpose and is too costly to boot.

Loke opined that the BN government and the EC should take legal action on the supplier by seeking compensation for supplying a product that does not meet the required specification for its purpose to be served.

“Unfortunately the EC does not want to reveal the name of the supplier on grounds of safety. What does EC mean by ‘safety’ in this matter? How does revealing the supplier’s name can cause a problem pertaining to safety?” questioned Loke.

He informed this columnist that prior to the 13th general election, the supplier’s name was kept secret to avoid sabotage but now that the polls are over, there is no reason to keep the name under wraps.

Pertaining to the same issue, Loke also highlighted the fact that for the 2008 general election, the indelible ink only cost RM2.4 million for 10.9 million voters although the ink was not used in the end. For GE13 the number of voters was 13.3 million which is an addition of 20% more voters but the cost of the indelible ink has risen nearly threefold from RM2.4 million to RM7.1 million!

Everyone is lying

In addition to that, he also questioned why the EC spent RM400 million (for a 20% increase in voters) to run GE13 when the operating expenditure five years ago was RM200 million.

This is not in proportion to the increase in the number of voters and amounts to approximately RM1.8 million per parliament seat.

Loke’s Pakatan colleague, Mujahid slammed the EC for saying 1,001 times that the indelible ink could last for seven days but evidence has proven this to be untrue.

“EC is not transparent at all,” commented Mujahid.

According to Mohamad Sabu, the PAS deputy president, the government and the EC are both playing spinning games in tandem to hoodwink the public.

He informed this columnist that the EC chairman himself, Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof had said that “The indelible ink contained silver nitrate although the amount of this chemical has been reduced in order not to endanger voters’ health and perhaps that is the reason why the indelible ink could not stay fast for long”.

The EC chairman also claimed that they had received a letter from the Health Ministry saying that too much silver nitrate in the indelible ink can cause cancer.

However the Health Minister, MIC’s Dr S Subramaniam denied that his ministry has ever issued such a letter and there was no discussion or consultation between EC and the Health Ministry pertaining to obtaining a report on the indelible ink’s effects on one’s health aspect.

Then in the latest revelation on June 27, Shahidan Kassim one of the ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department revealed that the indelible ink only contained food colouring and not silver nitrate.

“Who is telling the truth? All are lying. The method of the government and the EC is to have this person blaming that person and viceversa to cover up each other’s fault,” remarked the PAS man.

All the Pakatan MPs are strongly urging the government and the EC to reveal the supplier’s name because the rakyat want to know who is responsible for supplying an extremely expensive but deficient product which had compromised the whole electoral process.

The EPF and EC as vanguards of public trust should at all times be accountable to the public. Regarding the EPF, we want to know where our money is being invested and so far there are no complaints as we have been informed accordingly.

As for the EC, they should come clean on the whole electoral process. At present they are spinning their statements like a top.

The battle for transparency and clarity continues. Everyone should voice out in issues pertaining to good governance in order for Malaysia to become a better nation that is well-respected and admired by many.

Selena Tay is a DAP member and a FMT columnist.