'EPF, please don't kill patient to cure the disease'

 

Sarawak Bank Employees’ Union head Andrew Lo has called on the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) to not sacrifice its member's retirement savings for immediate gratification.

"Sarawak Bank Employees’ Union and the Sarawak Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) fully understand the statement by the EPF that it needs to liquidate assets to fund the withdrawals that the government imposed on it during Budget 2021.

"However, the EPF must not be a cash cow to compensate for the government’s inadequacy and inability to provide assistance to millions of poor workers, especially those working in the private sector," said Lo (above), who is also Sarawak MTUC chief.

He said that if the EPF is forced to liquidate its assets and rebalance its portfolio to make billions available to contributors in need of funds to lessen the financial turmoil, then it would lose a great opportunity to take advantage of investing in high-quality assets with low valuations.

"This will impact future earnings and the investment quality of EPF and compromise dividends payout.

"Most disturbing, it compromises the ability of EPF to serve its primary purpose - to provide for retirement savings of its contributors," Lo added.

What is damming is that those who need the withdrawals most, do not even have sufficient funds in their accounts, he said.

Last week, EPF chief executive officer Tunku Alizakri Alias revealed that based on EPF statistics, a total of 43 percent or 5.38 million members under the age of 55 have savings of less than RM10,000 in Account 1.

"This is an embarrassing and damning indictment of the government's low wage policy for the past 60 years," said Lo, not mincing his words.

He called on the government to remember that private-sector employees do not have a pension when they retire, unlike civil servants, ministers and MPs. 

"Persistent digging into EPF coffers by the government over the past several years, such as reducing the rate of the employees’ contribution, allowing for various withdrawals, even for haj, has exacerbated the situation.

"Please don’t kill the patient to cure the disease," he added. - Mkini