Economy

Moi and Kibaki families fail to claim idle assets

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The late Mrs Lucy Kibaki. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Former presidents Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki’s families have failed to claim their idle assets taken over by Treasury more than two years after their seizure were made public.

The Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA) said Friday the two families have not claimed ownership to assets owned by their late matriarchs.

The authority is holding East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL) #ticker:EABL and Centum Investment #ticker:ICDC shares and dividends belonging to Lena Moi as well as property belonging to Lucy Kibaki who died in 2016.

Mrs Kibaki’s assets were forwarded to the authority by Co-operative Bank in 2015 — months before the former First Lady died in a London hospital.

Mrs Moi died in 2004 and her EABL and Centum shares were transferred to UFAA in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

“The two first families are yet to make a claim to the assets,” said a source at UFAA who sought anonymity. “All we require from the claimants is a will or letters of administration in the absence of the will.”

Letters of administration are court permits to administer the estate of someone who has died without making a will.

Moi and Kibaki’s families are considered among Kenya’s wealthiest.

UFAA reckons it has made “reasonable effort” to alert the Moi and Kibaki family over the assets through publicity.

It has put the names of beneficiaries on its websites for their relatives and next of kin to query and file for claims.

The law requires the holding companies to search for the rightful owners of an asset before declaring it as unclaimed and forwarding it to the agency.

It is not clear whether the companies that have handed over assets belonging to the prominent families made an effort to comply with the law.

Most of the unclaimed assets are attributed to failure by the deceased to inform the beneficiaries of the assets besides the absence of a will.

Mrs Moi is survived by seven children, including Baringo Senator Gideon Moi, and Rongai MP Raymond Moi. Her marriage to Mr Moi collapsed in 1974 followed by a divorce in 1979.

Mrs Kibaki is survived by four children and her husband, who governed Kenya from 2002 to 2013.