I refer to the letters by CH Loh ('Smoking or non-smoking?', Dec 6) and Eric Cantona Malaysia ('Muslims have the right to practise religious beliefs, too', Dec 6), which I think miss the whole point.

As an EPF contributor myself, I would like to see the EPF investment management team obtain the best return on investment that they can achieve in the long term. This should be based on investment fundamentals and not on moral or religious beliefs.

The companies in question such as BAT, Genting and Guinness have basically been performing well over the years, are leaders in their respective industry sectors, have good corporate governance, have paid good dividends to their shareholders consistently and possess sound management policies and staff. As a beneficiary of the EPF fund, these are qualities that any investor should be looking for in committing funds for long-term investment.

The directive from the finance deputy minister to eventually divest these 'blue chip' stocks from the EPF portfolio may result in less than optimum performance of the EPF vis-a-vis generally acceptable benchmarks such as the KLCI or deposit rates. Thus, in the event that this does happen (and performance can be tracked), the question put forth is - who can the EPF members get compensation from if the EPF return is below par due to its subjugation to the directives of others?

To Eric Cantona Malaysia's remark that "If non-Muslims have the right to practise their own beliefs and religions, Muslims, too, have the right to practise their own beliefs according to Islamic teaching", I agree with him that everyone should have the right to practise their religion of choice.

However, I believe that the practitioners of any religion (Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc.) should not enforce their religious beliefs or practices on, or have the right to determine how my retirement savings are going to be invested. Isn't that an encroachment to the individual's rights?

The EPF was formed in the 1950s to provide a safety net for all Malayans (now Malaysians). The investment policies for many years have been that of risk diversification and to provide for a reasonable rate of return in the long run.

If the EPF were to start following the syariah list of acceptable companies, I will guess that the EPF will have to divest all its banking stocks (including blue chip Maybank) save for Bank Islam, most of its insurance company holdings and some other conglomerates and blue chip counters. While CH Loh and Eric Cantona Malaysia may find it acceptable to divest stocks which they do not favour due to their beliefs, I have to state that I am not willing to accept a lower return than what the EPF is currently capable of.

And what of the list of syariah acceptable counters? Most of them are in cyclical industries - plantations, construction and technology. So, if the EPF does follow the piper to switch solely to syariah approved stocks, I believe that the portfolio will be a higher beta portfolio (riskier) and secondly, reduce its risk diversification. What that means is that it will be at a higher risk and this means contributors' level of anxiety will likely increase.

I believe that over the years, the EPF has done a good job in maintaining its investment portfolio with a mix of equity, bonds, property and money market instruments. In recent times, however, some forays into dubious investments such as Time dotCom seem to signal a shift into higher risk investments which the Finance Ministry should not have condoned.

At some point in time down the years, when I withdraw my hard-earned savings, I would expect that the EPF has done its best to secure the best return on investment that it could have, based on sound investment decisions instead of political, religious or moral ones.