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Fang called upon the government to respect the voices and feedback of EPF contributors, whose funds had been accumulated over many years of employment. \u2013 Bernama photo<\/p>\n
KUCHING (Aug 3): The Batu Kitang branch of Sarawak United People\u2019s Party (SUPP) has voiced opposition to the proposed move to restrict Employees Provident Fund (EPF) lump sum withdrawals, stating that such a policy would deprive contributors of rightful access to their own savings.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued yesterday, the branch\u2019s publicity secretary Fang Toung Shyuan acknowledged the government\u2019s intent of preventing retirees from misusing their EPF savings and potentially falling into financial hardships.<\/p>\n
However, he also stressed about the retirement funds rightfully belonging to the contributors.<\/p>\n
\u201cEPF savings are the result of a member\u2019s lifelong hard work.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce they reach retirement age, the funds belong to them, not the EPF.<\/p>\n
\u201cImposing mandatory restrictions on how these savings can be accessed is unjustified,\u201d he said in the statement.<\/p>\n
Fang called upon the government to respect the voices and feedback of EPF contributors, whose funds had been accumulated over many years of employment.<\/p>\n
He argued that retirees should not be subjected to a rigid, one-size-fits-all policy, especially when many already had personal retirement plans in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the very least, members must be free to choose their preferred method of withdrawal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Fang also expressed concern over recent declines in EPF investment returns, which he warned could lead to public suspicion that the proposed policy served as a means for the government to shift financial risk to the people.<\/p>\n
He noted that some contributors planned to use their EPF savings to start small businesses, invest, support their children\u2019s ventures, or to make home purchases.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, he cited EPF\u2019s data reporting that around 50 per cent of members had less than RM10,000 in their accounts at retirement funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a monthly disbursement system is enforced, it could mean receiving only a few hundred ringgit per month, which may last just two to three years.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this regard, Fang called upon the government to drop the proposed policy, warning that it could cause unnecessary concern and inconvenience to EPF members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fang called upon the government to respect the voices and feedback of EPF contributors, whose funds had been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,28516,30454,133,30455,131,132,30456],"class_list":["post-42842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-epf","tag-fang-toung-shyuan","tag-finance","tag-lump-sum-withdrawals","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-supp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}