Small cos to get EPF membership
KATHMANDU, SEP 17 -
The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) announced on Sunday that it plans to permit staff of companies with less than 10 employees to become its members.
Besides managing the savings of members, the EPF provides loans such as home, education and other loans. The EPF has more than 466,000 members. It has also said that it would increase the number of members from the private sector in the next five years.
Speaking at the EPF’s 51st anniversary celebration, newly appointed administrator Krishna Prasad Acharya said that it would create a social security facility fund with the profits it makes annually so that its social security programmes can be made sustainable.
He added that the EPF would increase its investment in areas contributing directly to economic growth to 30 percent from the current 20 percent. “Under this plan, investment in the infrastructure sector will be given high priority,” said Acharya. It also plans to reduce its prevalence of liquidity against total resources. “The size of liquidity prevalence will be reduced to 2.5 percent of total resources from the current 3.40 percent,” added Acharya.
The EPF’s total resources are valued at Rs 125 billion. It has issued loans worth Rs 118 billion with 56.08 percent of them going to its members while 19.91 percent of its financial resources are deposited in commercial banks, 12.57 percent invested in government treasury bills and bonds, 9.22 percent in projects and 1.86 percent in shares of banks and financial institutions. The EPF earned Rs 10.6 billion in the last fiscal year 2011-12.
The EPF also plans to amend the existing EPF Act to address issues related to its scope, manage social security programmes and maintain corporate governance while making investments. It has said that the instability seen in the financial sector in recent days has made managing its resources a challenging task.
It also plans to reduce the risks associated with information technology by strengthening its business continuity and disaster recovery plans and work towards making its transactions paperless.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
