If you have been formally working in Malaysia, under 55 years of age, struggling with some residual love for your obstreperous teens, but desirous nevertheless to see them through university albeit grudgingly, this may be of interest to you.
The fact of the matter is that tertiary education is expensive, and unless your children have been able to secure scholarships or educational loans of sorts, or having Jho Low as an uncle, most parents will have no choice but to sacrifice their hard-earned savings to pay for the same.
Ideally, it would be much cheaper simply, to put your adult children in an e-hailing vehicle, sending them permanently off on a one-way ride to some remote area in Cambodia, but great ideas do not necessarily translate well in reality, especially with today’s overly sensitive woke generation, which considers the failure of parents to provide them with room service, and a minimum 24-hour 300 Mbps Wi-Fi signal, as human rights violations.
Anyway, parents in the criteria mentioned can tap into their compulsory retirement savings held in the government-controlled Employees Provident Fund (EPF), specifically, from their EPF Account 2, subject to the availability of funds, and the need to observe red tape in applying for same, principally, by submitting a fully completed “KWSP 9H” form to any of the EPF branches throughout Malaysia (together with the required supporting documents).
Simple enough, so it appears.
Perusing through EPF’s Customer Charter on its promise to deliver “excellent services”, it is extremely encouraging to know that at worst, subject to all documentation being in order, it would take a maximum of seven working days for a withdrawal to take place from the application made
Regrettably for my wife, it took exactly two months and two days, from the submission of her “KWSP 9H” form, to the actual date the EPF financial department remitted the tuition fees to her daughter’s university in the United Kingdom.
This story is therefore told for two reasons. Firstly, a sincere longing to forewarn other parents of the potential bureaucratic purgatory when facing similar situations, and secondly, for EPF to take cognisance that it seriously needs to improve its existing vacuous system of processing withdrawals for the purpose of remittance to universities abroad.
My only caveat is that this personal account is relatively long, and for that, I do apologise but the verbiage is unfortunately essential to provide clarity in the narration, which materially begins as follows.
On July 18, my stepdaughter, who emulates her mother, my wife, in beauty and intellect, received her first year law results from a private college.
For her outstanding academic performance, she was unconditionally offered, and accepted to continue her second year at the University of Liverpool, and that agreement was formalised with the university issuing the requisite Confirmation Acceptance for Studies (CAS), a document necessary for the eventual application for student visa, among others.
With a study placement confirmed, the remaining item was for the settlement of university tuition fees, part of it already waived by the same, in light of my stepdaughter’s college achievement.
Towards that end, on Sept 1, my wife submitted the “KWSP 9H” form to the EPF Kepong branch.
As my stepdaughter had yet to depart for the UK, the EPF Kepong branch sought evidence of the Commitment Letter – an official confirmation from the university that payment of some kind had already been paid towards the tuition fees.
Thankfully, after having explained the significance of CAS (which was furnished together with the “KWSP 9H” form), the EPF Kepong branch conceded that that Commitment Letter was not mandatory, and assured my wife that it would then liaise with the EPF financial department for the remittance process.
In any event, it is important to mention here that the University of Liverpool was not going to issue such a Commitment Letter, for as far as it was concerned, its CAS had the equivalent standing, and this fact was conveyed to the EPF Kepong branch.
On Sept 8, a day before my stepdaughter, wife, and I departed for the UK, my wife received a text message from EPF, briefly stating that her application had been rejected, but regrettably, without any reason given.
To get answers, she called EPF’s Customer Service and was informed that the EPF financial department still insisted on having the Commitment Letter, despite the waiver already agreed to by the EPF Kepong branch. So much for inter-departmental communications.
Even if my wife had wanted to accede to the demand, she could not do so for want of time, as we were all leaving for the UK the very next day (Sept 9).
In lieu thereof, EPF then insisted on a copy of my stepdaughter’s passport page (after our landing in the UK), showing the immigration arrival stamp, and to be certified true by a lawyer.
What is apparent here is that the Commitment Letter, or alternatively, the need to have the UK immigration arrival stamp, is EPF’s internal checklist prerequisite for verifying that my stepdaughter would, as a matter of fact, be studying at the university she applied for, and not absconding with my wife’s entire Account 2 savings towards the purchase of an essential Balenciaga jacket suited for classroom environments and wearing at charity functions for the poor.
However frustrated, my wife decided to comply, but before she proceeded to procure the services of a lawyer in the UK (for certification), called the EPF Customer Service, only to be reminded that that requirement remained unchanged.
So complied she did, and after doing so, and after discussions with me, made one final costly international call to EPF Customer Service, just to be sure that she had done all that was required.
This time, she was told by a different EPF Customer Service officer that the copy of the passport page had to be certified true by a Notary Public, not by a lawyer practicing in the UK, as the certification was done outside Malaysia.
My wife acceded to the demand, though I could see by then, she was on the verge of combusting, and consequent thereto, all my hopes for some Autumn love and romance (with her) were dispiritingly dashed, and showing palpable grief for the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, who had died just days earlier, became that much easier and natural for me to do.
Anyhow, with my stepdaughter’s university accommodation settled, my wife and I departed for Malaysia on Sept 16, and three days later, she submitted a copy of the passport page to the EPF Kepong branch.
By Sept 30, my wife called EPF and was merely told that the remittance to the University of Liverpool was still being processed.
On Oct 5, another visit was made to the EPF Kepong branch, and again, my wife was told that the matter was still in progress, though the officer there did mention that her Account 2 savings, to the exact amount of the tuition fees, had been successfully withdrawn, and that the EPF financial department, following therefrom, was in the midst of preparing the foreign demand draft (FDD), which was basically a cheque in Pound Sterling, and made out in favour of the university.
Two days later, my wife called EPF’s Customer Service on the status of the FDD but regrettably, the officer on the line could not provide any updates.
Only on Oct 8, my wife was requested to go to the EPF Kepong branch to sign off for the FDD, apparently the penultimate step to be observed before the actual remittance could take place.
Sometime in mid-October 2022, without any updates of any kind, my wife and I decided to go to the EPF Kepong branch and we were then told that the physical FDD was now in transit with its remittance agent, RHB Bank Bhd. Finally, we both felt hopeful that there would be imminent closure, or so we thought. Sadly, that was not meant to be.
Nearly two weeks later, and after two notices issued (in between) to my stepdaughter by the University of Liverpool to remind her of the overdue tuition fees, my wife and I frustratingly went yet again to the EPF Kepong branch in the morning of Nov 3. By then, it was safe to say that we were both on the precipice of war with this government-controlled agency over what we saw as the most inefficient manner in which it was handling this whole affair.
In response, the two EPF officers tried to explain that there was nothing they could do from their end as the FDD was no longer in EPF’s possession but with RHB.
For us, that was not an acceptable nor reasonable answer to give, for as far as we were concerned, until the matter was resolved, EPF (and not RHB) had a fiduciary obligation and responsibility toward my wife in seeing to the desired conclusion.
By the very same token, my wife could not simply march into RHB and go all crazy there and demand answers as there was no legal nexus whatsoever between her and the bank (but only with EPF).
We eventually left the branch after the two officers assured us that they would do everything possible to expedite RHB towards payment. To their credit, they did.
A few hours later, one of the officers at the EPF Kepong branch sent, via mobile phone, a blurry snapshot of the remittance notice (issued by RHB). Though relieved, it was disappointing to see that the EPF officer could not even ensure that the snapshot sent could be read. Only after my wife requested, that a legible copy of the same (in pdf format) be furnished, and that was forwarded to the University of Liverpool admissions representative as proof of payment.
Within the week thereafter, the same Liverpool admissions representative informed my wife that there was a shortfall in the tuition fees. Evidently from the EPF savings paid towards such, a part thereof was automatically deducted (at the source) as charges for the remittance exercise.
In that regard, it is profoundly astonishing to find out that not a single EPF officer assigned to handle the matter at hand felt that that crucial fact should have been clearly alluded to by my wife prior to doing so.
Thankfully, closure in this whole unfortunate episode truly came to an end when my wife paid for the shortfall directly to the university.
Perhaps, from the outset, she should just have borrowed money from 1Malaysia Development Bhd, which would have been a much easier thing to do, and avoided in turn, all the unnecessary mental anguish unwittingly inflicted by EPF on her.
Invariably, her EPF problems, by the dictates of marriage, became my problems, hence the writing herein.
Having said that, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge here that every single EPF officer who attended to my wife was respectful and empathetic towards her exasperation, even sincerely accepting that things could have been done better, irrespective of the inane working constraints imposed on them. For that, they deserve recognition.
On that note, I hope that someone somewhere within the EPF organisational structure with authority to change things for the better, will chance upon this venting, and be gracious enough to take genuine steps at improving a definitely flawed system (at least in this regard), failing which, it is most probable that my wife will compel me to write another needlessly long, and cynically admonishing piece for all and sundry (to read).
So, for everyone’s sake, I pray that that will not happen.
This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Twentytwo13.
