Kenyans are still waiting to reclaim billions of shillings sitting in the Unclaimed Assets Trust Fund after a new audit revealed that only a tiny fraction of the money was returned to its rightful owners over the past year. The findings raise fresh concerns over the fund's ability to reconnect beneficiaries with dormant financial assets despite holding tens of billions of shillings on their behalf.
The latest report on the Unclaimed Assets Trust Fund for the financial year ending June 30, 2025, shows the institution continues to face hurdles in carrying out its main responsibility of identifying beneficiaries and releasing unclaimed assets.
During the year under review, the fund held assets worth Sh34.26 billion, made up of Sh29.49 billion carried over from previous years and another Sh4.77 billion received during the period.
Even with the huge amount under its custody, only Sh427.46 million was released to beneficiaries, translating to a reunification rate of just one per cent of the total assets managed by the fund.
Auditor General Nancy Gathungu said the low payout rate points to weaknesses in the fund's operations. The fund started receiving unclaimed assets in 2014 before beginning the process of reuniting beneficiaries with their money in 2016.
“The authority is therefore not meeting its mandate of tracing unclaimed assets and reunifying them with the beneficiaries efficiently and effectively,” the auditor general states in the report.
The fund's management told auditors that a number of obstacles continue to slow the process of returning the money. Among them are lengthy legal procedures that apply the same requirements to both small and large claims.
The report says the cost involved in processing low-value claims discourages many people from following through with applications to recover their money.
The audit also found that regulations requiring claimants to submit physical documents, together with manual handling of applications, have made the process slower than expected.
Management also cited the difficulty of tracing the rightful owners of dormant assets, low public awareness about the existence of the fund and the growing number of accounts with very small balances that cannot easily be donated or disposed of under the current legal framework.
Although the fund said it has introduced measures aimed at improving the reunification process, the Auditor General maintained that the challenges continue to stand in the way of returning unclaimed assets to their rightful owners.
The report further notes that billions of shillings held by the fund remain locked in ongoing legal disputes.