Moratorium coming soon

A moratorium is a delay or suspension of an activity or a law. In a legal context, it may refer to the temporary suspension of a law to allow a legal challenge to be carried out.

For example, Animal rights activists and conservation authorities may request fishing or hunting moratoriums to protect endangered or threatened animal species. These delays, or suspensions, prevent people from hunting or fishing the animals in discussion.

Another instance is a delay of legal obligations or payment. A legal official can order a delay of payment due to extenuating circumstances, which render one party incapable of paying another.

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PETALING JAYA: The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) hopes the Government will consider raising the retirement age to 60 from 55 currently because long retirement period is one of the factors that contribute to inadequacy of retirement savings.

Chief executive officer Tan Sri Azlan Zainol said this when asked what was EPF's wish for Budget 2012.

“A factor that works against the adequacy of retirement savings in Malaysia is the increasingly long retirement period.

“When it was first set up in 1951, the full withdrawal age for our members of 55 was the same as the Malaysian life expectancy then.

“But some 60 years on, while the full withdrawal age has not changed, the average life expectancy of Malaysians has increased to 75 years.

“Thus, Malaysians today need to save for a 20-year retirement span compared to a shorter one 60 years ago. This is a long period and one of the longest in Asean and the world,” he said in his keynote address at the Malaysian Private Pension and Healthcare Conference 2011.

Another factor that influences the inadequacy of retirement savings among EPF members is the spending habit of retirees.

Azlan said that in a survey commissioned in 2003, it was found that 14% of its members finished their retirement savings within three years of retiring, 50% within five years and 70% within 10 years.

“Hence, we need to be mindful of this inadequacy of retirement savings issue as it could snowball into a future social issue,” he said.

At EPF, as a guide towards judging the adequacy of retirement savings, Azlan said, it had established a measure called “basic savings”.

“Basic savings is a benchmark by which members can gauge the adequacy of their retirement savings at each year of their life from 18 years to 55 years of age.

“The final aim is to have accumulated RM120,000 by the age of 55 that will translate into RM500 a month for the next 20 years.

“We are happy to note that at the end of 2010, for our active members who are 54 and about to retire this year, their average savings is around RM127,000 each,” he said.

However, the RM500 a month is lower than the 2009 poverty line income of the country of RM800 a month set by the Economic Planning Unit.

On healthcare and retirement, Azlan cautioned that the demand for healthcare for the aged was expected to rise significantly in the forthcoming years.

“And the Malaysia population is ageing, according to the United Nations, with more than 7% of our population aged 60 years and older.

“At EPF, we are cognisant of our members' needs and for those most urgent, we have provided withdrawal schemes from members' account two for housing, education and critical illnesses.

“From July 15, we have raised the number of critical illnesses eligible for withdrawal from the age of 36 to 55,” he said.

On the paring down of EPF's stake in RHB Capital Bhd and Malaysia Building Society Bhd (MBSB), Azlan declined to comment.

EPF holds 44.84% and 65.5% stakes in RHB Capital and MBSB respectively.

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The man who was born with a golden spoon said he is listening to the people.  But what he is not telling you is that his ears, eyes and hands are looking at how to dig more money from us to continue his existence.  The wish list - one cannot withdraw ones EPF money till one is 60 years old.  In the meantime one must continue to pay taxes and work till one dies.  It does not matter that the company you work for does not require your service when you reach 55 or 58 years old or one is sick and need to pay for medical or one wants to take it easy and enjoy the fruit of labour with the saving or one wants to start a small business.  Now it is a NO! NO! YOU CANNOT WITHDRAW YOUR OWN MONEY.

EPF is just the beginning.  Coming soon would be savings in the banks.

UMNO Government had siphoned out trillion and had lost trillion in bad business deals overseas and here.  Every mega project is a failure.  This has been going on since 1984.  The reason why no-one noticed the missing money and bad business deal was because Malaysia was rich in minerals especially oil. Money from timber, sand, land and oil were aplenty.  It was easy to cover up.  

Every election, each Ministers were carrying by the millions in their cars to give ang pows to village heads.

Ministers and Menteri Besar (at least 4 of them) carried couple of millions whenever they go overseas for work and pleasure.  

Gold bars and money from PNB all disappeared under Zeti's watch.

My good friend even carried 4 bags of CASH, GOLD and BONDS by hand to Switzerland.

Knowing Rosmah attitude and behaviour, no need to think far.  All her life saving has left this country too.

For the past two years Najib has been acting as Santa Claus using our money to buy us.

So with no money and investment coming in, how long can we last?

My prediction OCTOBER  2012.  

So does this answer the question of the water crisis in Selangor?  You think the Sultan is stupid.  He too knows about the game. Do you think he cares about the Rakyat?

In Australia when one reaches 55 years old one can withdraw the whole sum from the Employee Fund.  Then at 60 years old, one is automatically given a pension by the Government and many other benefits as a way of saying thanks for your years of contributing to the development of the country.

Here in Malaysia our Government is like JAWS ever ready to take our money and land.