KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 24 — Putrajaya will give those with less than RM10,000 in their Employees Provident Fund (EPF) an additional RM500 to help rebuild their retirement savings.
The sum was part of the government's new Budget 2023 and will benefit up to two million EPF contributors aged 40 to 54.
"To all members of EPF who have less than RM10,000 in Account 1 of their EPF savings, the government will add RM500 into those savings.
"This programme is expected to benefit the two million EPF contributors and involves an allocation of RM1 billion," Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today when tabling Budget 2023.
"The government also hopes that everyone with sufficient retirement savings will continue to contribute so that everyone can benefit from this."
On Wednesday Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan said the top 20 percentile of income earners (T20) in Malaysia are “monopolising” EPF with their savings making up the bulk of the total amount.
In contrast with other groups, the T20 also saw the savings in their EPF accounts increase by 11 per cent during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In April 2020 the total number of funds in the EPF accounts belonging to T20 account holders was RM538 billion, which then increased to RM597 billion by December 2022.
A total of 2.6 million EPF members come from the T20 category.
He said the total of EPF funds from the bottom 40 per cent of income earners (B40) in April 2020 was RM13 billion, which fell by 46 per cent to RM7 billion last December.
Between 2020 and 2022, under the leadership of Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and then Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri, the government allowed four special EPF withdrawals.
Since then, Perikatan Nasional MPs have continued to call for targeted EPF withdrawals to help Malaysians cope with the cost-of-living crisis, but the current unity government has declined to allow it.
Ismail Sabri has also championed the issue, urging Malaysians to make their voices heard if they want EPF withdrawals.
