The move by the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority to take over 1,013 safe deposit boxes is yet another reminder on the need to scale up efforts to trace the owners.
The latest treasure trove in the repositories includes jewellery, title deeds, share certificates and treasury bills. We urge the assets agency to put in more effort to trace the asset owners of their next of kin.
Financial institutions are quick to declare the assets as they do not want to fall foul of the law on withholding such assets.
However, the big question in many minds is to what lengths the agency has gone to reunite the assets with their owners or relatives.
The agency must go beyond putting the information on its website and use all available mediums of communication.
Since some of the safe deposit boxes were last active in the 1970s and 80s, it just goes to show that the institutions holding them did not exhaust efforts to trace their owners, but are opting for the easier way out by surrendering the assets to the agency.
We aver that before an asset is surrendered there should be valid attempts to trace their respective owners or next of kin.
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