{"id":76093,"date":"2022-02-14T01:08:55","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T05:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=76093"},"modified":"2022-02-14T22:21:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T02:21:59","slug":"the-mere-contemplation-of-a-surcharge-on-epf-and-etf-payments-is-ghoulish-the-policy-envisaging-a-surcharge-is-hatched-in-the-devils-workshop-is-this-gotabayaism-that-seeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=76093","title":{"rendered":"The mere contemplation of a surcharge on EPF and ETF payments is ghoulish. The policy envisaging a surcharge is hatched in the devil\u2019s workshop.Is this \u201cGOTABAYAISM\u201d that seeks to call for sacrifices in the pursuit of nation building?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Rajpal Abeynayake<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Government is contemplating a surcharge on the Employees\u2019 Provident Fund (EPF) and Employees\u2019 Trust Fund (ETF) earnings of workers, and though there is no complete clarity on this development, the general expectation is that the surcharge would happen.<\/p>\n

Is this progressive policy, even in times the Government is in a tight spot making ends meet and ensuring that the economy does not collapse? An EPF surcharge of any sort would irrevocably damage the relations the Government has with the working class.<\/p>\n

If there is no alternative the Government could affect the surcharge in the form of a loan, payable with interest to each individual when the State can afford such payments.
\nThat\u2019s right. There should be a loan scheme in which the State borrows from the wage-earner and pays back handsomely with interest.<\/p>\n

Instead, what\u2019s being contemplated seems to be a scheme of daylight robbery of sorts. Sans a pension in the private sector, wage-earners look to EPF and ETF as the only means by which they could comfortably contemplate retirement.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Any policymakers who thought of this scheme are ghouls. EPF and ETF have been hard-won gains in the private sector which has an exploitative work ethic.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the single means by which the private sector workers seek to redress the massive imbalance between their salaries and those of government servants. The latter are a pampered lot. They are basically a labour force that leads a subsidised existence funded by the State.<\/p>\n

The private sector worker is in fact the instrument through which this subsidy is granted by the State. Is it a stretch to claim so?<\/p>\n

Not if you consider that the private sector workers ensure profits in that segment of the economy which pays the bulk of taxes that keep the State going.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s these taxes that eventually find the relatively luxurious lifestyles of government servants. EPF and ETF are the bulk payments that offer the private sector retiree a chance to compete \u2013 or redress the imbalance.<\/p>\n

Upon retirement, the private sector worker gets a lump sum that he or she can invest to make greater gains. No such lump sum is given to state sector employees that are entitled to a monthly pension. Some of the latter are given a commuted pension but that does not compare with the relatively large sums paid out as EPF and ETF.<\/p>\n

But, though the prospect of a lump sum being paid out to private sector employees seems as if it is a great boon that awaits the private sector folk, it is not in reality anything that can be considered such a sanguine prospect. The private sector employee having laboured for long years as a wage slave knows relatively little or nothing about gainful investment.<\/p>\n

Therefore, legion are the stories of those who have lost everything they worked for, in a matter of months. Very often these private sector retirees find themselves duped by sharks that pounce on their money promising rich investment gains. Then they are systematically diddled. It\u2019s this sad reality that is making many elder statesmen such as Chandra Shafter of insurance fame contemplate a private sector pension to go along with EPF and ETF payments.<\/p>\n

Now, when the reality of retirement in the private sector is fraught with this kind of danger that\u2019s not duplicated in the government sector, the mere contemplation of a surcharge on EPF and ETF payments is ghoulish. It goes without saying that the optics of it are horrendous.<\/p>\n

These are the types of policies that cause upheavals in the nature of peasant or labour-led revolutions. People see the corruption at the levels of government and bureaucracy and then they see that when it comes to the little savings that they have for retirement after a lifetime of work, they are being asked to pay up before being granted access to that facility.<\/p>\n

If that doesn\u2019t lead to a mindset that causes people to rise up in revolt, what does? In this context, it can be said that the policy envisaging a EPF surcharge is hatched in the devil\u2019s workshop. If it\u2019s indeed the policy that\u2019s being contemplated, it\u2019s now certain that the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has severed all connections with the progressive past of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) that led to the birth of the ruling SLPP in the first place.<\/p>\n

The working class is the backbone of the progressive left of centre SLFP, and even though the peasantry is made up of the rural classes, its bedrock vote base, it\u2019s the working class that gave all substance to the working class movement of the post-Bandaranaike progressive movement.<\/p>\n

Mandating a surcharge in EPF and ETF is the ultimate betrayal of this social contract \u2013 it\u2019s an act of treachery that would have few modern-day parallels. <\/p>\n

Why touch the EPF with such seeming nonchalance? As stated earlier, if the economy demands it, what can be done is to borrow from the EPF and not make it a surcharge on the lifetime savings of working-class retirees.<\/p>\n

But, it seems policymakers are not imbued with that amount of sensitivity to the fact that EPF schemes and similar retirement benefit arrangements were the articles of faith that formed a compact between the progressive forces of this country, and the voting classes that swear by these parties. <\/p>\n

To this day there are labour class voters who do not think twice about who they vote for. They do not vote for the right wing, or waste their vote. They have never voted for any party other than SLFP or SLPP in their entire lives.<\/p>\n

Imagine the ultimate backstab aimed at this type of block voter \u2013 the attempt to syphon off a sum of money from their lifetime\u2019s earnings? Is this Gotabaya-ism that seeks to call for sacrifices in the pursuit of nation building?<\/p>\n

It can be argued that the money has to come from somewhere when the rich cannot be taxed too much either. When the rich or business proprietors are taxed, that constitutes a fetter placed on innovation and entrepreneurial spirit and all that. But, the private sector wage earner is part of that equation as well.<\/p>\n

Show me a business owner that is able to supply an export commodity without exploiting the working class labour on his organisation\u2019s payroll and I will show you a fictional character in a novel. <\/p>\n

It may be a truism that in the capitalist scheme of things it\u2019s eventually the poor and the middle classes that pay taxes, but there is a necessity even under the most cynical of capitalist calculations to keep the social fabric intact.<\/p>\n

How that can be done if the regime is going to touch the EPF payments of workers is a poser. It\u2019s the private sector management that should be protesting first at these types of ill-judged intemperate policymaking, but it seems these managements are only too gung-ho and happy to close ranks with the regime on such policies that are guaranteed to permanently alienate the labour classes. <\/p>\n

We did not have a nation comparable to some of the South American countries that are permanent powder kegs that are forever rife for revolution. It\u2019s not for nothing that such nations are called banana republics. <\/p>\n

The contemplated policy on a surcharge for EPF seems, however, to be poised to take us in that direction. If carried out, it will be the single most perfidious act that broke the compact between sanga, veda, guru, govi, kamkaru, and the political classes that hitherto had the allegiance of these proletarian forces that make up our country\u2019s progressive movement.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Morning<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Rajpal Abeynayake The Government is contemplating a surcharge on the Employees\u2019 Provident Fund (EPF) and Employees\u2019 Trust Fund (ETF) earnings of workers, and though there is no complete clarity on this development, the general expectation is that the surcharge would happen. Is this progressive policy, even in times the Government is in a tight …<\/p>\n

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