The two organisations which is the biggest intuitions of its kind not only in the country but also in this part of the world has yet to adopt the desired level of transparency in their operations and embrace fully the corporate governance as advocated by our own government.

They appear to be hiding behind the acts of parliament under which they are created and have not volunteered to publish their financial statements for the public to scrutinise.

We hear of the misdemeanor created by them in their investments only through the auditor-general's report, extracts of which are sometimes published by the press but otherwise not available to the masses.

The workings of their investment committees and the rationale as to why they invest in some doubtful projects are not made known, even to the board of directors, as in the case of Employees Provident Fund . Most of the time the responsible party is allowed to go scot free.

The accounting policies they adopt are a mystery to their own members and depositors. Risk management functions as adopted by prudent institutions involved in investing public funds are unheard off in these institutions. Meanwhile Socso, which has accumulated substantial cash from premiums paid by employers to cover risks on behalf of their employees, is equally mysterious in its investment policies.

What is known is only when trickles of news appear in bits and pieces that investments and projects undertaken by these institution have failed or that it is located at odd places or that their trusted business partners have absconded as in the case of Tabung Haji .

In specific terms, I wish to say that EPF - which has 58 abandoned projects - and Socso need to be more transparent while the board of Tabung Haji is overwhelmingly occupied by politicians who have little, or no knowledge of investments and risk management.

It will take a long while more for public confidence to be where it used to be in the past. Meanwhile depositors and contributors will continue to be shortchanged. Perhaps Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, our new prime minister would like to have a closer look at these institutions and some of their mysterious practices.