Unclaimed dividends and bank account balances unattended to
for at least six years will available as special credit to the federal
government through the Unclaimed Funds Trust Fund.
According to the Finance Act 2020 recently signed into law
by President Muhammadu Buhari, the trust fund will be a sub-fund of the Crisis
Intervention Fund.
“Any unclaimed dividend of a public limited liability
company quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and any unutilised amounts in a
dormant bank account maintained in or by a deposit money bank which has
remained unclaimed or unutilised for a period of not less than six years from
the date of declaring the dividend or domiciling the funds in a bank account
shall be transferred immediately to the trust fund,” the act read.
The act exempts official bank accounts owned by the federal
government, state government or local governments or any of their ministries,
departments or agencies.
According to the act, the monies transferred to the trust
fund will be a “special debt owed by the federal government to shareholders and
dormant bank account holders”.
It also states that the original owners of the money can
claim it at any time.
The operation of the trust fund will be supervised by the
Debt Management Office (DMO) and governed by a governing council chaired by the
finance minister and a co-chairperson from the private sector appointed by the
president.
Other members of the governing council shall include the
governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), director-general of the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), managing director of the National
Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), a representative of the registrars of
companies, two representatives of the shareholders’ association, a
representative of the Bankers’ Committee and the director-general of the Debt
Management Office as the secretary of the trust fund.
This move will make needed funds available to the federal
government without foreign exchange worries or conditions attached to loans
from multilateral lenders.
According to the Debt Management Office, Nigeria owed $31.98
billion to multilateral lenders like the World Bank Group, International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and African Development Bank (AfDB) Group as of September 2020.
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