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”.
How MPF could allow Hongkongers to withdraw funds during the pandemic
Actuaries, such as myself, do our best to provide ranges of projections but none of them can ever be guaranteed to be certain. If you add in the risk that you might lose what has already been paid into your pot, then you are adding yet another layer of uncertainty. This undermines the whole purpose of the MPF system – to provide some kind of financial protection in retirement – and makes proper financial planning even more problematic and uncertain.
The continuance of this “offsetting mechanism” undermines the very essence of pension provision and planning. I doubt Hong Kong’s chief executive understands or cares what that means for ordinary people though – she has a salary-linked pension that is guaranteed in terms of its amount, that it will be paid for the whole of her lifetime, and that it will never run out like MPF pots can and do.
As such, she has absolute certainty and zero risk. Yet another example, as if we needed one, of how completely detached the government is from the reality of ordinary people’s lives.
Lee Faulkner, Lamma
