Government to seize dormant pensions and insurance accounts

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July 26, 2016 1:00 AM

Government is set to take over dormant pensions and insurance accounts.

Government will soon take over dormant pensions and insurance accounts.

Finance Minister Seth Terkper who announced this in his mid-year Budget Review presentation to parliament, said the policy is for government to take over dormant deposit-taking and dormant non-deposit taking accounts of financial institutions.

He explained that “the unclaimed assets programme, to be launched soon, is a programme for managing assets or funds that are presumed to be abandoned, stranded and remain unclaimed by their owners.”

Identifying exactly the types of funds that fall under this category, Seth Terkper said, “balances on dormant accounts, with banks and other deposit taking institutions including dividends, interests, redemption proceeds, insurance premiums and pension entitlements.

“These funds will be transferred into an independent fund and managed effectively till they are reunited to their rightful owners which are in some cases the next of kin who may not be aware of the existence of the fund after the owners died,” he said.

Mr. Terkper indicated that the measure is practiced in several countries in Africa including Ivory Coast and Kenya.

The Finance Minister delivered his subsidiary budget to realign revenue and expenditure targets with current happenings in the economy.

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