Aug 12, Colombo: The private sector trade union in Sri Lanka, the Inter Company Employees' Union (ICEU) says the government is once again attempting to introduce a private sector pension scheme to pilfer the monies in the private sector retirement fund, Employees' Provident Fund (EPF).
ICEU Head, Wasantha Samarasinghe said the government was trying once again to dip into the EPF monies under the guise of a pension scheme, instead of introducing a proper pension scheme to benefit the private sector workers.
He explained that a pension scheme for the private sector workers is one of the proposals of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide financial assistance to the country and the government was trying to introduce a "pension" scheme again to satisfy the IMF and to get the EPF monies.
According to Samarasinghe, the government's last effort to dip into the EPF monies was thwarted by protests in the free trade zone (FTZ) resulting in the death of an employee.
http://www.colombopage.com/archive_12A/Aug12_1344777018JR.php