Wednesday, 23 April 2014 00:00
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I was shocked to note that the Auditor General has revealed that the EPF has lost Rs. 11.7 billion due to bad or deliberate investments; a 1% drop in the value of the EPF. Who are the losers? The poor workers of this country.
What are they doing about it to take the managers of the fund to task? The beneficiaries would have by now stacked their monies away in banks oversees. Who are the beneficiaries? Who are the brokers? What is the JVP-UNP opposition doing to hold those people responsible for making these bad investments? They all have powerful trade unions. What are these unions doing to protect their members’ money?
The Superintend of the fund in 2011 R. Dheerasinge (source EPF Annual Report) who was responsible for managing the fund/caused the loss is now moved up to an Assistant Governor of the Central Bank, in 2012. Her spouse is now tipped to be a Chairman of a private bank. If it was done in good faith by her, give the basis for the investments? Firstly, there was no basis to invest in The Finance, give us the rationale? If not, where is the accountability? In India the officials concerned would have been prosecuted after an investigation.
Take Golden Key or CIFL, where the Regulator did nothing when the financial institution was getting run down. The EPF should not be allowed to be run by a few people, to get rich at the expense of the poor workers.
The EPF fund management as proposed by Dr. Harsha de Silva MP should include trade union and private sector representatives to prevent this plundering and to ensure the correct investment are made.
What is the free media doing to bring the culprits to book? President Mahinda Rajapaksa who worked tirelessly for the benefit of the workers as Labour Minister and knows how the EPF should be managed for the betterment of the workers, should ask for explanations at least now - two years late, from the Central bank and hold an impartial investigation by appointing a retired Judge and based on the findings take to task the errant officials based on the public sector disciplinary rules.
Only in certain countries in Africa can public sector officials get away by causing a loss of this magnitude. Surely don’t our poor workers deserve something better than this?
R. Fernanado
Colombo 5
