Keeping the nest egg intact.

THE Employees Provident Fund remains ever mindful of the need to protect the rakyat's 'retirement money', especially in the present difficult climate.

THE ASSET SIZE OF THE EMPLOYEES Provident Fund (EPF) has grown more than 14-fold in the past 24 years - from RM24.6 billion in 1985 to a colossal RM356 billion as at March 31, 2009.

Maintaining a growth rate of 8%-10% annually, as it has for the past 10 years, would see EPF funds breaching the half-trillion figure by 2013, four years from now.

The EPF is always in the limelight and with it much criticism - ranging from fair and constructive to wild and unwarranted - not because it is big but because as the pension fund for most Malaysians, they attach more emotion to their savings and want more say in 'what the fund does with my retirement money'.

Imagine this - the average net inflow of members' monthly contributions in the first quarter of 2009 was a staggering RM1.2 billion! When the EPF declared a 4.5% dividend for 2008, …