"You Are Our Priority"

That's the challenging slogan displayed prominently in the EPF's office.

The last time I visited the office was about 5 years ago and conditions have changed dramatically.
My wife and I went to the EPF office in JB during the Singapore National Day holiday and the hordes of people in the office looked like a place where free money was being given out.

My wife took a queue number and went to the counter for checking the balance in her account. She was also given some forms to fill.

As far as the counter service is concerned, the staff do a good job and the numbers were being called very quickly. We were about 230 in line waiting but the counters in operation were about 20 for different transactions like withdrawals, unit trusts, nominations etc.

It was about 2hours and 15minutes of waiting before my wife's turn arrived. The handling of her case was done in a courteous manner though a small detail in her case had to be checked with the staff in the next counter.

We finished the transaction at about 5:30pm. Well done to the EPF staff!

Now for a few observations:

There is no cafetaria available to the public for this very crowded facility. In fact even the photo-copy stall has closed down. Kids were running all over the place and making noise and this would affect the working environment.
A cafetaria with linked display panels would improve the conditions for both the public and staff as there were no seats available in the waiting areas. Please visit the Immigration HQ in Singapore and see how they operate the cafetaria there.

For the verification procedure, they scan the thumb print PLUS a set of physical prints. I wonder why they need your prints on paper too. It seems like another loophole to exploit if crooks are about.

In crowded places like the EPF one can observe people from all walks of life.

There was a young mother happily breastfeeding her baby.

The young man in the next booth wanted to close his account as he proudly proclaimed,

"I've renounced my citizenship."
How apt to do it on Singapore's National Day. He looked about 25 and seemed to be of Indian origin. One more talent less for Malaysia but definitely a gain for Others.