HAVING worked at the Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) for a long time, I tend to agree with the letter “Old-Age ‘benefits’ or ‘hardships’?” (June 27), and wish to present the true picture of today’s EOBI before the pensioners. It is a tripartite institution consisting of three stakeholders; the government, the employers and the employees.
The main reasons behind the poor performance and maladministration is the government policy of continuously ignoring the EOBI despite repeatedly talking about improving the lot of the pensioners.
Subsequent governments have repeatedly increased the EOBI pension amounts for political mileage, but they do this without restoring the ‘matching grant’, which represents the government’s share in the EOBI fund, which was stopped way back in 1995. As a result, the EOBI pension fund has been severely affected.