PMX mocked for “GE16 vote buying” via 2nd straight EPF conventional-syariah savings dividend parity

 

THAT the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has beaten “a 19-to-1 against odds” for a back-to-back parity for its 2025 and 2024 dividends for conventional and syariah savings has raised eyebrows among conventional saving members of a possible hidden hands of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim at play.

For the record, EPF had on Saturday (Feb 28) declared a dividend rate of 6.15% for Simpanan Konvensional with a total payout of RM67.1 bil and a similar 6.15% for Simpanan Shariah with a payout of RM12.5 bil, thus bringing total distribution for 2025 to RM79.6 bil.

Although the 2025 dividend rate was slightly lower to the 6.3% for 2024, the uniformity of both the conventional and syariah rates has led to trending news site The Coverage Media hailing PMX who is also the Finance Minister as “true Muslim leader”.

“This is incredible because both funds invest in different assets and markets yet they’ve achieved identical net returns,” it praised with a tinge of sarcasm in its Facebook page.

Mathematically, in a purely continuous model (like returns following normal distributions), the probability of two distinct giant funds producing exactly the same dividend rate (to two decimal places) in any given year is effectively zero.

Even conservatively estimating discrete possibilities, the chance of them matching in two specific consecutive years is only about 4.9% – odds against it of roughly 19:1.

Striking this ‘jackpot’ twice in a row? That’s truly legendary, almost magical!

For the record, the EPF syariah savings was introduced in 2017 as an option to members who prefer their retirement savings to invest solely in assets that adhere to Islamic principles.

There used to be a ~0.50% gap between in favour of conventional savings till 2023 – the first year of the Madani government rule – when the gap was reduced to 0.10%

Miraculous accounting feat?

The “mathematically unlikely” parity has set tongues wagging with EPF conventional savings members foreseeing the Islamic savings to perform even better if not surpassing conventional savings in the run-up to the 16th General Election (GE16) as PMX drums up support for his Madani government.

On the other hands, some conventional savings members wondered over the likelihood of “dividend from the conventional savings being passed down to the Syariah-compliant savings to equalise both of them” which is “not impossible to do with some creative accounting”.

If such is the case, then this raised the question of syariah-compliant considering that proceeds from the conventional savings scheme may come from “haram stocks”. Therefore, “while the Syariah savings is Islamic, the action of equalising the dividends for both funds is not Islamic”.

Well, this led to one conventional savings member wondering if the finer details on investment are available given “EPF will never publish the portfolio”.

To this, some learned members reckon that he can track if he “reads all the AGM reports” although this can be cumbersome on grounds that “EPF investment also contain holding real estates overseas and other form of investments that are only open for institutions”.

At the end of the day, perhaps political observer/Madani critic Sharifuddin Abdul Latiff has the best answer not only to conventional and syariah savings members but also for EPF in that “since parity can be achieved, why bother having two options”.

“Creative book-keeping must be the new KPI (key performance indicator) in Madaniland eh … ” he jibed. 

- Focus Malaysia