Dear Editor – Please give me some space to share my piece on NPF issue which appeared on paper no 6837, the follow up by Charles Dausabea in response to the NPF Board.
I must admit that my remoteness in the province made me read the story a bit late and I couldn’t figure out the starting issues with the story line but as Charles Dausabea came back to clarify and follow up on his initial question I started to figure out some of the issues which started the story on the paper.
I must thank Charles Dausabea and his team for putting this important story on paper, because very few of us, people who are members of the National Provident Fund (NPF) do have access to these important information.
The Annual reports published every year on our national papers do not tell these stories very clear, in fact many times without any notes they are misleading.
The accountants know this, the summary numbers without any back end stories are almost like packaging for marketing purposes.
When I read through the issue raised by Charles and his team and the response by the CEO of NPF and chairman of NASFUND, I kind of have a funny feeling that something is not right and people are trying to ensure that this wrong does not emerge to the fore in their time.
Questions raised by Charles are genuine ones that all members can ask, because they are good questions for fund members to ask.
What I gathered from the crude information on national paper: The precious funds of the members are invested here and there in certain business investments, however some are not performing as expected, others do not pay dividend even when they performed well, and even some play with the unrealistic magic of revaluation to extract funds from the Fund.
The happenings inside and outside the fund – the high internal costs and the poor return of investments only points to one ending, “loss of funds” and as Charles and team correctly highlighted it should be a serious worry to all members, because it’s just a matter of time for this dead skeleton hidden in the ward ropes to come out exposed.
By that time it’s too late.
At the revelation of the real situation, numbers will be mere numbers without any real benefit.
Our account balances will be just mere numbers which do not have any real association to dollars and cents or real tangible benefits.
Why? because they are just numbers created by unrealised revaluation done over the years.
At this critical time we should ask NPF to engage a reputable firm to revalue the all assets of the fund, to assert the values sitting in the books which on the other side reflects true value of members balances.
To our new CEO, please do not play the blanket cover kind of response employed in the last response you provided in the paper, come out clean and explain to members because these issues are real issues.
The NPF Board is your superior, but the members are even more superior, please help them with the answers to the questions and end the mystery of such blanket reporting.
Explain item by item to members the questions raised, nothing is wrong. We members do understand the dilemma you are in, and we want such a character to look after our funds.
For me I am beginning to fear my contributions with NPF, I really want if my age could change over one night sleep to get above fifty in-order to get my contribution early.
My heart couldn’t stop pumping on relying on the revaluation miracle, because I understand that unrealised revaluation which pumped air into the numbers may be deflated anytime soon.
Are the numbers on my NPF account real, please Lord help my hearts heart-beat, because I do not want to get heart attack on the news day that they are only imaginary numbers with passing of time.
Please let my NPF balance be real, because it is my only saving for my entire working life.
Philip Kutii Jr.
Burns Creek
East Honiara
