EPF may finance 9MP projects

Stop treating the public's hard earned superannuation savings as a piggy bank which you can raid whenever you want!

Firstly, I hope to god that EPF's board are as independent as they claim to be. But sadly, god rarely listens to me.

Secondly, I hope that the terms of the financing will be at market rates and arm's length. But again, EPF will probably get screwed and be left to wipe its own arse with cheap toilet paper where your fingers poke through easily into the poo.

Thirdly, EPF is a simply a huge cashflow game. As long as employee contributions exceed withdrawals, the EPF can continue making bad loans, bad investments and losing money - and nobody would be the wiser. Why? Because apart from the cash transactions, everything's only on paper. As long as cash incoming can fund cash outgoing, they can carry on indefinitely even if all the underlying assets & funds have been siphoned off.

With some creative accounting (remember, the EPF is not a corporate body and therefore not subject to accounting and listing regulations governing companies, and is not obligated to publish their accounts to the public), they can perpetually keep things buried deep in their accounts, which we can't see anyway. The only watchdogs over EPF are the Ministry of Finance, Accountant General and Auditor General. But we all know how dedicated they can be.

Well, the next time EPF proposes something dodgy like only allowing contributors to only draw a small pension until their death, rather than take out the whole lump sum at 55 years... think about it. Does the EPF really want to make retired life better for you, or are they running into cashflow problems (and therefore need to reduce withdrawals by limiting the amount each contributor can withdraw each month)?

I just hope I get to withdraw my EPF before the shit hits the fan one day.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006
The Edge

EPF may finance 9MP projects

The Employees Provdent Fund is one of the possible financiers for the government to undertake the development projects under the Ninth Malaysian Plan, deputy Finance Minister Datuk Dr Awang Adek Husin said.

He said there were interested parties, both locally and internationally, that are keen to provide financing to Malaysia to cover the budget deficits arising from the expenditure under the 9MP.

Despite the interest expressed by the foreign parties, Awang said the government would only seek funds domestically to finance its development projects.

Among the options available are to tap into the high liquidity in the market through bonds issue and also through the EPF, he told reporters at the Malaysian Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (MAICSA) Annual Conference 2006 in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Commenting on the budget deficit, Awang said the government is comfortable with the anticipated 3.5% this year as it needed money for development expenditure.

Meanwhile, he said the government would announce projects under the Public Finance Initiative before year-end.