FEB 8 — I still remember the 80s recession for all the things my family lost. My father lost his job. We lost the house. Gone, too, was the money I saved as a little girl in my rabbit-shaped piggy bank, used by my mother for groceries.
When you resort to tapping your children’s paltry savings, you know you’ve reached rock bottom. So why aren’t more alarm bells ringing about the government taking RM1.5 billion of the EPF’s money, our money saved from years of gainful employment?
Let’s be honest: Whatever we have left in our EPF, what more if we’ve used it for housing, education or medical bills, is unlikely to last us long. For most people, it’ll last them a good year or two in retirement. The lucky ones will have additional savings to tide them over, perhaps a small business to keep the income flowing or passive income from funds.
What will happen to those who will depend on whatever meagre amount they have in the EPF? The low-income earners, the blue-collar workers? If something were to happen to the funds, what then could they hope to subsist on?
The way the EPF is structured, no contributor can just walk up to a counter and withdraw funds. You have to meet certain conditions; necessary ones as, human nature being the way it is, there’s no guarantee we can keep our hands off the money if it was more accessible.
What right, then, does the government have to take it without our permission and for questionable purposes?
It’s painful thinking back to how I felt as a child, seeing my parents forced to ask me for money. I remember staying up at night, worrying if we’d have enough food. I recall crying when my mother said she was pregnant because my child’s mind believed there was no way my parents could afford another mouth to feed.
No child should ever have to grow up in the quiet desperation poverty drowns you in. No matter how resilient children can be, poverty leaves a mark that leaves many children to be wary and fearful for the future. They learn, the hard way, that they can’t always rely on adults to protect them from deprivation.
The problem is that our leaders, being far too comfortable materially, have no empathy for the hardships of the masses. While the already-pinched middle class can somewhat imagine what it’s like to be old and penniless, too many of our politicians are deafened by their comfortable lifestyles. What gives these politicians the right to spend money they didn’t earn without the tacit permission of its owners. Isn’t that stealing? Or should we use the gentler definition: Misappropriation of funds?
Our government likes styling itself as a caretaker, but has proven a poor one. When you can’t trust your government not to touch your retirement funds, how fearful do we all need to be about our collective economic future?
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.
