Over 58,000 FNPF members have zero balance

58,712 Fiji National Provident Fund members have zero balance in their accounts as at 30th June 2021.

This is according to the Fund’s 2021 Annual Report.

FNPF says some of the reasons these members' accounts have been reduced to zero balance include no contributions paid to the account, no contributions received for re-entrant accounts, 98% accounts being inherited from pre-preservation policy, inconsistent contributions, continuous withdrawals which depleted members’ balance and 97% are dormant for 10 years or more.

The Fund says while these accounts do not hold any monetary value, it is unable to terminate these as their laws prohibit them from doing so without members’ consent.

FNPF says the zero balance accounts have gradually become a contentious issue, wrongly interpreted and misconstrued.

It says these accounts were reduced to zero prior to the implementation of the preservation policy in November 2014, when members’ savings were split into sub-accounts, the preserved and general accounts.

It has also been revealed that 188,288 members have less than $5,000 in their accounts while 112,516 members have between $5,000 and $20,000 in their accounts.

227 FNPF members have over $500,000 in their accounts.