If the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) were a country, it would be suffering a severe case of Dutch disease — the name for the harmful consequences that arise, ironically, from large increases in a country’s wealth after the discovery of valuable natural resources. One example of this is the gas find in the sea off Holland in the 1960s.

Also known as the "resource curse", it can often leave a country poorer and with more inequality, more corruption and less democracy than before...

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