THE Fiji National Provident Fund is working to further restrict early withdrawals as concerns grow over members reaching retirement with low savings.
Finance Minister Immanuel Esrom confirmed this, saying while section 44 of the FNPF Act already limits access to members’ funds, more work was being done to protect retirement savings.
Mr Esrom said the issue was not only about withdrawals, but also the level of contributions being made by workers.
“There’re a few issues there,” he said.
“One is the level of contribution itself. The other is the withdrawal.”
He said FNPF was looking at ways to assist members with lower retirement benefits, particularly those who may not have enough savings by the time they leave the workforce.
“FNPF, my view, needs to look at areas where we can assist those with lower benefits.
“They’re trying to restrict withdrawal because now there’s two funds for every employee or every member.
“So you can only withdraw on a few areas only that you can withdraw. Before it used to have a range of areas where you can withdraw.
“But now there are only two or three areas. So one is already restricted.”
Mr Esrom said the remaining concern was how much members were saving during their working life.
“We should encourage savings, especially for those with lower income, or look at other sources of income that can go directly to the contributions.”
He said money received from relatives overseas or family members could also be directed towards FNPF contributions instead of being used only for consumption.
“Because, as we are aware, for us, Fijians, once we have a lot of funds, we have a lot of expenses.
“We will think about ways to use the funds.”
