BA MPs  should demand in Parliament for  a full list of RM40 billion  EPF loans especially those made after the financial crisis  from 1997 to 1999 to ensure that "every sen is safe" as EPF increased loans to corporate borrowers during this period when banks had turned cautious and tightened credit

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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang 

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The recent assurance by the  Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Halim Ali that  “Every sen in EPF is  safe” is meaningless as he had not been able to give a full and satisfactory explanation on many EPF investments, as for instance:
 

• why EPF lost over RM100 million from its RM269.28 million investment in 81.6 million Time dotCom shares at RM3.30  as the share is hovering between RM1.96 to RM2.10, and there are people who say it is worth even less.
• whether the RM181 billion EPF funds  had been involved in the final-minutes  multi-million ringgit institutional manipulation of the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange (KLSE)   through the Big Three “TMT” stocks - Telekom Malaysia Bhd, Malayan Banking Bhd and Tenaga Nasional Bhd - in the past three months;
• whether EPF had bought some 3.4 million shares in Maybank costing some RM43 million  in the 12 days between March 9 to 27, 2001  incurring a loss of some RM11 million when Maybank fell to below RM10  per share at the end of trading last week.

EPF's asset and investment allocation for loans and debentures at the height  of the financial crisis in 1997 reached  RM33.83 billion or 26.16 per cent  of total EPF funds in 1997, RM38.43 billion or  26.58 per cent  in 1998,  RM39.87 billion or  24.61 per cent in 1999 and  RM37.62 billion or 20.77 per cent in 2000 when a decade ago loans only constituted  8.2% of total allocation of  EPF funds.

Are these EPF loans safe or will they end up like the RM500 million EPF loan to Time Telecommunications Holdings in 1996, forcing EPF to participate in the Time dotCom IPO bailout at terms detrimental to the interests of the EPF contributors?

The 9.7 million EPF contributors are entitled to a full and satisfactory explanation for the close to RM40 billion EPF funds allocated for loans and debentures in view of  the fact that the government has failed to learn any lesson from the 1997 financial crisis.

As University of Malaya associate professor Dr. Edmund Terence Gomez said at the DAP “Bailouts and buyouts - are EPF, Pensions Trust Fund and Public Monies Safe” held in Kuala Lumpur last Monday,  financial institutions that are controlled by the government  are being used to channel loans to a privileged few who are facing problems in servicing their debts.

According to him, 15 corporate groups accounted for 20 percent of Malaysia's entire bank loans during the economic crisis.

He said: "Of the RM39 billion loaned by banks for share acquisition, almost 45 percent were given to the individuals. One company, the Umno-linked Renong, had accumulated debts constituting more than five percent of loans in the Malaysian banking system."

EPF should report to Parliament all the loans given out to the Renong-associated stable of companies before and after the 1997 financial crisis.

(16/4/2001)