Federal government is once again proposing the unpopular Unclaimed Dividend Trust amendment to the Companies & Allied Matters Act (CAMA), where unutilised bank balance and unclaimed dividends will be held.
This is after several unsuccessful attempts in the past two decades to push it through.
Providing highlights of the 2020 finance bill at a webinar organised by KPMG in collaboration with the ministry of finance, budget and national planning on Friday, the finance ministry said the funds would be owed as a perpetual debt to shareholders.
Explaining the justification for the policy direction, the finance ministry said the plan corrects an anomaly in the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) which provides that shareholders will lose their rights to unclaimed dividends after 12 years.
The CAMA states that such monies will be returned to the company for redistribution to other shareholders.
“In place thereof, it is proposed that such unclaimed dividends should be handed over to the government, as trustee, in a perpetual fund created under the supervision of the CBN & DMO etc with private sector involvement in the governance of the fund,” a presentation at the webinar read.
“The liability to shareholders will no longer be extinguished after 12 years.”
The ministry further explained that such funds could be used to fund infrastructure projects.
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the value of unclaimed dividends hit N158.4 billion at the end of 2019.
Some bank accounts have also become dormant after the owners died or the accounts have been left unoperated for years and the owners did not register for bank verification numbers.
Those who know fear this may just be a prelude by a government, pressed by revenue shortfalls and rising expenditure but unwilling to plug its yearning gorges dug by corruption, to eventually laying its hands on dormant accounts held over the years by banks in the country.