COMMENT | RM120b GLIC investments need serious rethink

COMMENT | Directives to six government-linked investment companies (GLICs) managing RM1.8 trillion to invest RM120 billion over five years in potentially risky high-growth ventures are dangerous and misplaced.

Such investments should be through direct government funding via cutbacks and new revenue sources and channelled into one professional, government-owned investing company rather than a number of them with different objectives.

This is especially so since the six - the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), Retirement Fund Inc (Kwap), Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Tabung Haji, and Armed Forces Fund Board (LTAT) - have different obligations to their different stakeholders.

Importantly, the RM1.8 trillion invested by these GLICs is not liquid. Most of it is not available because they are already invested, much of them in long-term stable, solid investments. To say that they are liquid is incorrect.

The second thing to note is that...