DR Mahathir Mohamad should recall his own statement 12 years ago, urging the Employees Provident Fund to invest more of its funds overseas to yield higher dividends, said a minister.

Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek said Dr Mahathir made the statement on April 26, 2005, hence it is contradictory of him to criticise Khazanah and EPF’s investments in the United States.

“At that time, he (Dr Mahathir) said EPF had a huge fund size of RM240 billion and that investing it all locally will mean low returns. He added that EPF must invest overseas to increase its income. 

“Today, as at the end of June 2017, EPF’s fund size has reached RM759.78 billion – more than three-fold of what it was when Dr Mahathir made the statement,” he said in a statement today.

Ahmad Shabery said EPF has clarified that its overseas investments, or 29% of its total investment assets, contributed 32.5% to the total investment income in Q2.

The overseas investments have also given an annualised return on investment (ROI) of 11.1% as at June – significantly outperforming EPF’s local investments.

“I am surprised to know how Dr Mahathir has now changed his mind and position in criticising Khazanah and EPF’s investments in the US. It shows he is playing hate politics while disregarding the welfare and interests of the people.”

Investing overseas is nothing new for both Khazanah and EPF, the Umno minister said. Khazanah opened an office in Silicon Valley in 2013 and in 2014, it made more than US$1 billion in the US after the listing of Alibaba – a five-fold return on its investment.

Most of the funds for its current US$400 million investments in tech firms in the US comes from the Alibaba profits. – Bernama, September 16, 2017.