(Petaling Jaya, Friday): My home phone and handset rang at about the same time this morning. These were calls made by a relative of mine and a member of the public who were upset by the Wawasan 2020 unit trust fiasco.

 

According to them, units were sold within the first 30 minutes at all participating banks ( Commercial Bumiputra Bank and Maybank).

 

One of them told me that she was told to transfer fund from another bank to the Kelana Jaya Commercial Bumiputra branch prior to the commencement of sales on 1 September 2006. After completing the transfer two days before the sales, she went to the branch before it opens for business this morning. She managed to obtain No.6 in line but she too could not purchase a single unit. Only the first two in the long queue got to buy some units.

 

Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020 should explain to all potential investors what has really happened this morning.

 

This fiasco came as a double jeopardy to my complainant..

 

Only last week, she, as an agent for a successful unit trust company, has complained to me about the Prime Minister who made a "knee-jerk" reaction to the so-called RM600 million losses "suffered" by EPF. She said the PM should not have made such negative comment ( he threatens to freeze the exercise if unit trusts continue to perform badly) on unit trust market without knowing the true picture.

 

Unit trust agents in the country were upset by the irresponsible statements made by EPF and the negative comment from the Prime Minister. They clamed that the so-called RM600 million losses reported by EPF was inaccurate and even baseless. How EPF has reached such a figure was highly questionable. And EPF has not clarified the figure until today. The unit trust market as a whole, in actual fact, appreciated value by more than 30 percent in the last three years.

 

No doubt that some unit trusts were not doing well in the market. EPF should have advised its members to be extra careful with such underperforming unit trusts instead of making sweeping statements which were unfair and even hurtful to other performing ones.

 

My complainant insists that as the Prime Minister (who also holds the position of Finance Minister) of the country, he should never make comments on such an important industry without checking his facts. I could not agree more with her.