EPF Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Halim Ali had admitted that the EPF had invested
RM269.28 million to take up 3.22 per cent of the Time dotCom IPO. As the
price of Time dotCom has crashed by 35.76% in the first week of its debut,
from the IPO price of RM3.30 to RM2.12 per share at the close of trading
on Friday, this means that EPF had incurred RM96.29 million from its
subscription to the Time dotCom IPO in the first week of its public
debut.
EPF had declared the lowest dividend in 25 years when it announced 6% dividend for last year. With the adventurist and most irresponsible management of the EPF funds like the Time dotCom IPO bailout, the 9.7 million EPF contributors may have to expect even lower EPF dividends in the coming years.
As the role of the six workers' representatives on the EPF Board is to protect the security, liquidity and yield of the RM181 billion EPF funds and not to allow even a single sen to be jeopardised because of imprudent or irresponsible investment, they should explain their role in the deplorable and indefensible participation of EPF in the Time dotCom IPO bailout.
Siva and CUEPACs must also explain why they allowed RM903.74 million from the Pensions Trust Fund (KWAP) to be misused in the Time dotCom IPO bailout, jeopardising the pensions and gratuities of the 800,000 public servants - incurring a loss of RM323.16 million in the first week of Time dotCom debut.
As the losses suffered by EPF and KWAP total the staggering sum of RM419.45 million last week alone from their investments in the Time dotCom IPO, the MTUC and CUEPACS leaders must explain why they had done nothing to stop such criminal misuse of the pension and provident funds belonging to the workers in both the public and private sectors.
(18/3/2001)