Letters | No relief for Hong Kong workers robbed of retirement protection by MPF offset mechanism
- The ‘offsetting mechanism’ undercuts the very essence of pension provision and planning, by adding – on top of market risk – the possibility that one’s employer might dip into the original contribution. But discussions on scrapping it have been put off again.
I have lived in Hong Kong for more than nine years and this issue has been “studied” for the whole of that time – how much longer does the government need to “study it”? Unless the government tells us who is “studying it”, to whom they will report once they have “studied it”, and when they will issue the report on the conclusions of their “studies”, we can only conclude that officials are kicking this can down the road yet again.
The use of the term “MPF offsetting mechanism” is a perfect example of the abuse of language to cover up what you are actually doing. An “offsetting mechanism” sounds like a statistical technique that only nerds need bother looking at rather than what it actually is – the enabling of employers to steal from their employees’ individual MPF pension pots to subsidise their dismissal.
Looked at from the point of view of an employee, this “mechanism” is allowing my employer to use my own money to fire me. There is no other word to describe this except “amoral”.
