KUALA LUMPUR (March 9): The government should look into merging the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and the Social Security Organisation (SOCSO) to meet the needs of the ageing population and workforce, an academic suggested on Thursday (March 9).

Lee Hwok Aun, senior fellow at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said a merged EPF-SOCSO entity would have a similar function as the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board in Singapore.

"It would be similar to the CPF in Singapore, which is a mega fund that serves various purposes such as health insurance," said the former Universiti Malaya (UM) senior lecturer in development studies.

"I could imagine EPF and SOCSO being merged. I know there is no such thing yet, and it is something that would need a government undertaking,” said Lee at the Malaysia Outlook Conference 2023, hosted by the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS Malaysia).

Expressing a similar view, Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr Norma Mansor, director of UM's Social Welfare Research Centre, said the key to the merger is how the two organisations could create synergies.  

Noting that there could also be risks in such a merger, she said: "There will be a lot of issues, not just related to the merger. For example, SOCSO covers injuries, while EPF covers a small part of the insurance business as the rest is focused on savings. Risk and appetite, the investments will have to be different.”

This is not the first time the issue of merging SOCSO and EPF has been raised. A merger of the two agencies was proposed back in 2018 to look after the welfare of the country's millions of workers, and to eliminate overlapping agencies and save taxpayers' money.