"We should not sacrifice long-term comfort for short-term luxury," said Acting Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

That is exactly what has been happening in the past 30 years in many areas especially with the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Petronas.

The dividend rates of EPF for 30 years had been comparatively low even in those days of 8 percent. Now in 2002, the dividend of 4.25 percent is obviously too low in the absence of accountability, and when transparency and good governance is dubious. Who is responsible for that?

For too long, the silence of the stakeholders had sent a wrong signal to the government. The dividend is the pulse of the financial health of the fund. All is not well at all when the dividends are so low in 40 years, yet the accumulated fund is given at RM203.78 billion as compared with RM186.9 billion in 2001.

In the absence of more detailed accounts, it is not possible to give a better analysis. But as the fund is not in high-risk business ventures, the net income of RM7.78 billion as compared with RM9.01 billion (2001) is questionable, especially after the provision of paper loss of RM2.14 billion.

All these figures would give an impression that some window dressing had been effected as paper loss is not the same as real loss. Any paper loss now means that the present stakeholders are forced to bear future losses.

I had observed that in years prior to 1997 - and possibly still being done - are that blue-chip shares were disposed of to make temporary or short-term capital gains. What is the logic of disposing blue-chip shares o­nce they are invested by the biggest fund that EPF is? What happen to the money so obtained by such disposals? Was it invested in equal quality shares in the expectation of securing good dividends now?

Another wisdom is that why should blue-chip shares o­nce secured be disposed of at all, as this fund is long term without the need to compete with others like business investment funds in unit trusts? The costs of buying and selling such shares are unnecessary, and are at the additional expense of the stakeholders.

This diagnosis is logical in that, the low dividend in a fairly stable stock market does indicate that these inferior companies pay low dividends. The market value of such shares are also over valued possibly due to high prices at the time of purchase.

We should ask that the fund be scrutinised independently o­n this point: why are the dividends or income much lower, and at the same time why is it that the accumulated fund is much higher? Also the higher provision of paper loss is totally unacceptable.

The overall performance of the fund is questionable and if stakeholders are not concerned, who will be? We must have a total review of EPF over the 40 years to get a good picture.