Employees Provident Fund (EPF) chairperson Abdul Halim Alis comment that he was fully satisfied with the funds investment performance has been criticised by the opposition.

DAP chief Lim Kit Siang said the remark was not good enough as it was a self-serving statement coming from a self-interested party as Halim heads the EPF, one of the worlds largest provident funds.

[This] is another reason why there should be an independent performance audit of the RM187 billion EPF investment decisions, by a royal commission of inquiry, said Lim, in a press statement today.

Such a [complimentary] verdict can only be issued credibly after an independent performance audit is done on the [multi-billion ringgit] EPF investment decisions, he added.

A Bernama report yesterday quoted Halim as saying that he was fully satisfied with the performance of the EPF investment panel, and that they had carried out their work professionally and had never deviated from the task entrusted to them.

However, the funds investment decisions have come under fire lately from opposition leaders and workers representatives like the Malaysian Trades Union Council, which represents some 500,000 members.

To register their disgust, 200 unions affiliated to MTUC recently passed a vote of no confidence on the EPF investment board for its failure to ensure fair returns on the contributors savings, despite the panel being represented by five of their (MTUC) members.

The criticisms came in the wake of EPFs decision to pay a five percent dividend last year, the lowest in 38 years.

MTUC also questioned why EPFs provision for diminishing value of equity and doubtful loans had doubled in a year, from RM753.65 million in 2000 to RM1.41 billion last year.

Who benefits?

The EPF, established in 1951, is the first national employees provident fund in the world, and has been courting controversy since it was corporatised in 1991 by an act of Parliament.

It was allegedly linked to various loan facilities running into billions of ringgit to various unsuccessful mega-projects and companies like Perwaja Terengganu Sdn Bhd, Time Telecommunications Holding Bhd (renamed Time dotCom), Star Light Rail Transit and the Sarawak Bakun hydroelectric dam project.

Lim said these dubious and questionable involvements have raised the question as to whether the safeguarding of the EPF members interest had been subordinated, and even sacrificed, to other considerations and agendas.

He added that the fund, which invested RM42.58 million in equity last year and whose stock market investments are expected to touch RM50 billion this year, is the biggest mover and shaker in the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.

But the EPF contributors are entitled to ask who really benefits from the EPF being the biggest mover and shaker in the stock market  the 10.07 million EPF contributors or the EPF fund managers? queried Lim.