THE Employees Provident Fund (EPF) has refuted statements by Sarawak Report carried in its blog and a Facebook post yesterday.

EPF, in a statement yesterday, said it neither had dealings nor entered agreements with Limage Holdings S.A., Limage Southwest Holdings, an individual known as “Gyorgy Matrai” or any of the parties claimed by Sarawak Report.

“As such, no transfer of bonds or funds of any kind to any of the aforementioned companies, parties or individual could have occurred as alleged.”

It said it had been made aware of a fake “Letter of Indemnity” dated August 20, 2015, addressed to Matrai of Limage Holdings S.A., alleging an agreement between EPF and Limage Holdings S.A., on October 26 the same year.

“As it was clearly a falsified document, EPF lodged a police report on October 28, 2015.

“A ‘Letter of Award’ (LOA), titled ‘Development and Construction of Integrated Medical City Project for EPF’, from TripleNiceTales Sdn Bhd dated May 18, 2015, was made known to EPF on February 24, 2016.”

The fund said as there were third parties misusing its name, and there was suspicion of fraud involved, it had lodged a police report on February 26, 2016, stating that it had no knowledge of and was not involved in the transaction referred to in the LOA.

“The involvement of Ladylaw Securities Pte Ltd and one Nic Manikis was made known to EPF on January 20, 2017, and a police report was lodged on January 23 the same year, stating that EPF has no knowledge and was not involved in any investment transaction with Ladylaw Securities or Nik Manikis.”

It said schemes of such nature would not pass its robust governance framework.

“Before any investment decisions are made, our governance process requires all proposals to be subjected to stringent risk assessment and due diligence by the management.

“All approvals must go through the management investment committee for endorsement before being forwarded to the investment panel for final approval.”

The panel comprises industry professionals, senior members of the EPF management, Bank Negara Malaysia and the government.

“We remain steadfast in fulfilling our mandate to protect and safeguard members’ savings.” – Bernama, March 1, 2018.