NSSF calls on pensioners to collect unclaimed assets

By Macharia Kamau

To reduce the backlog of unclaimed assets it is holding, the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has called on pensioners yet to collect their retirement benefits to do so.

The Fund becomes one of the few institutions holding enormous amounts in unclaimed assets to make such a move.

Though NSSF did not declare the monitory value of the unclaimed assets it is holding, the Fund asked its members listed in a three-page paid advertisement to collect their retirement benefit cheques.

Analysts say the amount is significant and runs into billions.

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Mr Joe Ngigi chief executive of Unclaimed Property and Assets Register said the amounts held by different pension schemes runs into hundreds of billions.

"The amount of assets being held by different institutions as unclaimed is in excess of Sh200 billion," he said.

NSSF headquarters in Nairobi. The fund is among the first institutions holding enormous amounts in unclaimed assets to ask pensioners to collect such assets. Photo:File/Standard

Financial institutions and pension schemes are among those that hold large amounts of unclaimed assets.

Also holding billions of shillings in unclaimed funds are co-operative societies. Statistics indicate that nearly a quarter of the total money due to the members of the societies who have died or left active service over the past two decades has not been claimed.

No records

This is either because the deceased members did not inform their next of keen of their shareholding or gave up on the money after following it up for years without success.

It is feared that unlike banks, insurance companies and pensions funds that have kept records of the unclaimed assets, the cooperative societies have no such records.

The law is lenient on how companies treat unclaimed property, as it is open-ended and leaves them to assume owners after a given period, in most cases seven years.

Develop policy

Ngigi, whose company has been working with the Government in developing an unclaimed assets policy and legal framework, said the Finance Ministry would soon table the unclaimed Assets Bill in Parliament.

"The mechanism in terms of claiming such assets is not clear in Kenya but there might be reprieve for many as the country should have a law governing the treatment of unclaimed assets by those holding them," he said.