The Dewan Rakyat was informed in Kuala Lumpur today that the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) only provided loans to asset-rich government linked companies and not to high-risk corporations.   

Deputy Finance Minister Dr Awang Adek Hussin said EPF’s investment panel carried out risk assessments and monitored all its investments, in the form of loans, to ensure they were safe.       

“The Finance Ministry screens and approves the panel's decisions. I’m confident high-risk investments would not be made,” he said in response to a supplementary question from Ismail Kasim (BN-Arau).  

Ismail had wanted to know if EPF was actually monitoring all its investments, especially the high-risk ones.

Awang Adek said there were several experts on EPF’s investment panel including Bank Negara deputy governor and Treasury deputy secretary-general.   

Answering Azan Ismail’s (PKR-Indera Mahkota) initial question on EPF’s total loans to corporate institutions, Awang Adek said it came up to RM83.7 billion as of June 2011.  

He said RM79.41 billion or 95 percent of these loans were guaranteed as it was to the government, while the balance of RM4.31 billion went to corporate institutions.      

He added that EPF was constantly striving to pay its members higher dividends by ensuring its investments yielded higher returns and did not just depend on government guarantees.  

- Bernama