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{
    "id": 32335,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/32335/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 504,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Oburu",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 194,
        "legal_name": "Oburu Ngona Odinga",
        "slug": "oburu-odinga"
    },
    "content": "Just to give a little background to this particular Bill, during the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) meeting held on 27th and 28th July, 2007, the Macro Economic Committee of the NESC presented a report prepared by a company known as “Unclaimed Property Assets Registrar (Kenya) Limited”, which estimated unclaimed assets held by many institutions in Kenya to be around Kshs200 billion. The report further indicated that there was no legal requirement for the institutions to declare the unclaimed assets that they held, and that unclaimed assets needed to be re- united with their rightful owners, or beneficiaries. Where they are untraceable, the assets should be transferred and held by the Government Exchequer or an independent agency of Government. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, the report went on to say that unclaimed assets can provide a huge non-tax revenue base for the Government, such monies can be used for long-term investments in projects such as the infrastructure development envisaged under Vision 2030. The report suggests that a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework should be developed urgently to address the issue of unclaimed assets. This was the background which led the Ministry of Finance to establish a task force on 19th March, 2008. The aim of the task force was to ascertain the nature, extent and value of unclaimed financial assets in Kenya. The task force members were drawn from the key sectors of the Kenyan financial system. It comprised representatives of key regulatory bodies, including the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), the Insurance Regulatory Authority, the Capital Markets Authority and the Retirement Benefits Authority. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, the task force came up with recommendations. Before the recommendations were made, a very detailed analysis of unclaimed financial assets in Kenya revealed the following: Surveyed institutions in the banking, capital markets and insurance sectors reported total unclaimed assets of Kshs9.1 billion. Of this total, banks reported Kshs7.4 billion; listed companies, Kshs1.5 billion; insurance companies, Kshs283 million; the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), Kshs243 million; and Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), Kshs66.8 million. The reported unclaimed assets were far below the originally estimated Kshs200 billion. However, this could be attributed to a number of factors, the main ones being exclusion of non-financial assets like land and other property, significant under-reporting by holding institutions surveyed, particularly in the pension and insurance sectors, and non-reporting of unclaimed assets by Government agencies such as the Public Trustee."
}