Proposed law seeks to give relatives access to Sh62b unclaimed assets

National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung'wah. [Denis Kibuchi, Standard]

Listed beneficiaries and next of kin to individuals with unclaimed financial assets could soon access Sh62 billion from the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA) should a Bill before Parliament get the nod.

According to UFAA, financial assets remitted to them but not claimed as of March 16, 2024, are valued at Sh62.34 billion. This represents a Sh10 billion increase from the Sh52 billion worth of assets declared by the authority in May, last year.

Chairman of the UFAA Board of Trustees, Kigo Njenga, earlier this year confirmed that the assets have been forwarded from banks, insurance companies, and Saccos where they have been in dormant accounts for a long time.

Key among the reasons hindering the claiming of the assets, the authority revealed, was the unavailability of principal owners/ claimants.

And now, National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung'wah has introduced a Bill to give a claimant/owner the power to designate the payment of a claim to another person in their absence.

The unclaimed Financial Assets (Amendment) Bill, 2024, if approved by Parliament, will see Kenyans with unclaimed assets nominate beneficiaries who can claim assets on their behalf.

It seeks to amend Section 45 of the Principal Unclaimed Financial Assets Act, 2011, which states that where a claim is allowed, the authority shall pay over or deliver to the claimant the assets or the amount the authority actually received or the net proceeds if it has been sold by the authority.

The new legal proposal seeks to insert the words, "or such other person as the claimant may designate" immediately after the word "claimant".

New clause

"Where the authority is satisfied that a person is the owner of all or part of the assets that became unclaimed assets and paid into the fund, the authority may pay out of the fund to the owner or such other person as the owner may designate an amount equal to the value of those assets or part of those assets as the case may be," reads the Bill.

The Bill comes at a time when UFAA is targeting to remit Sh5 billion in cash and 350 million shares in the current financial year ending June 2024.

According to the authority, a total of 29,076 claimants have been paid to date in the current financial year, with payouts being worth Sh2.03 billion.

For one to claim their assets, they are required to file a claim with the authority. It takes up to 90 days to process the claim and give notice to the claimant of its decision.

Given that all claims go through the same process, Kenyans - especially those with small value claims - have criticised the process, terming it cumbersome and threfore a key deterrent to them going after their assets.

UFAA is, however, determined to rectify this by establishing a shortened turnaround time for processing and payment of claims.

In its 2023-2028 strategic plan, the authority seeks to reduce the payment period of claims to seven days.

"Progressively, it will take only seven days to process and pay claims by the original owner, and 50 days to process and pay beneficiary claims down from 30 days and 90 days respectively," reads the plan in part.

The authority has since embarked on sensitisation campaigns to make the public aware of unclaimed assets and how to claim them.

According to UFAA Chief Executive Officer John Mwangi, in the year ended June 2023, Kenyans traced and recovered Sh4.5 billion in cash from the authority as a result of the increased campaigns.

"We are glad that the campaigns are bearing fruit. We have surpassed the Sh4 billion target that we had set to remit in the year 2023 by Sh500 million. These amounts mark a 49 per cent growth from the Sh3.02 billion remitted in 2022," Mwangi said during a sensitisation campaign in Embu in January, this year.

He attributed the surpassed target to campaigns that encouraged holder compliance and remittance of unclaimed assets to UFAA.