I DON’T know whether to laugh or get angry when I read the Employees’ Provident Fund’s announcement that it has attained MS ISO 9001:2000 certification for its “Quality Management System”.

Ten years ago, when other agencies such as the Inland Revenue Board were highly inefficient, I would say EPF’s service was clearly the most efficient, and it was a role model for all government agencies.

Unfortunately, while IRB’s service has improved by leaps and bounds, the same cannot be said for EPF, judging from my disappointing experience.

In October last year, I discovered that my May contribution was not credited into my account. This was through no fault of my company, which has promptly remitted the contributions to EPF.

For 10 months from last October till now, I have made no less than six calls to EPF’s call centre to highlight the discrepancy, paid a visit to EPF’s headquarters in Jalan Raja Laut early this year to lodge a complaint, and also got my company’s human resource department to check with EPF on my missing contribution.

I had even followed up with a fax in May, but to date, nothing has been done. EPF did not even bother to reply my faxed letter.

How can EPF claim to be efficient in its delivery system when a contribution, remitted by my employer some 14 months ago, has yet to be credited into my account?

T.S.F. , Kuala Lumpur

Source: NST – August 1, 2008