My UTC experience

It holds out the promise that the past performance of the Fund over the last 20 years with a purported 15.83 percent average annualised return will continue into the future.

This may have been true if you invested in the Fund in 1986. It certainly has not been the case over the last few years and new investors have to be wary of the lure of such advertisements.

I raised the matter with the Governor of the Central Bank as to the possibility of False representation of the likelihood of future returns on the basis of which new investors may be influenced to act. He expressed surprise and promised to investigate.

My own experience with an investment in the Growth and Income Fund is that there was neither growth of my investment nor income accruing to it. In fact, after one year from December 2004 to January 2006 I suffered a loss of my investment of 6.524 percent.

It was a bitter pill to swallow after I was persuaded to shift from a deposit account at a commercial bank on which interest was paid to the Growth and Income Fund which resulted in an erosion of my savings.