Malaysians have RM5.96b in unclaimed monies
A TOTAL of RM5.96 billion has not been claimed by Malaysians as at Oct 31, the Dewan Rakyat was told yesterday.
The unclaimed monies, said Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Othman Aziz, mostly came from dormant bank accounts, fixed deposits that had expired, unclaimed insurance payouts and interests.
He said the government had raised public awareness of unclaimed monies through the print media and talks.
“Besides that, we took part in exhibitions to provide an explanation to visitors.
“Activities were also held with various agencies and departments and regular awareness briefings held at all state accountancy offices,” he said in reply to Datuk Ahmad Fauzi Zahari (BN-Setiawangsa).
The deputy minister added that beginning next year, the Electronic Government Unclaimed Money Information System would be activated to assist Malaysians to check the status of their unclaimed monies.
Under Section 8 of the Unclaimed Moneys Act 1965, when an account had been dormant or inactive for more than seven years, the balance in the account was classified as unclaimed money.
The unclaimed money would then be surrendered to the Registrar of Unclaimed Money under the Accountant-General’s Department in a consolidated trust account.
He said under Section 11(3) of the act, owners would not earn interest for any unclaimed money and the original sum would be refunded to them.
The largest amount refunded to an individual was nearly RM6 million, while the smallest sum was 39 sen, he added.
The public can check for unclaimed monies from the Accountant-General’s Department.
Those who have unclaimed money are required to submit supporting documents.
Meanwhile, the government extended the 30-year concession contract of Express Rail Link (ERL) for another 30 years.
Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Abdul Aziz Kaprawi said the extension was given as the government had turned down the request to review the rail fare on three occasions.
“Under the initial 30-year contract, which expires in 2029 (from 1999), ERL is entitled to a fare review every five years.
“As we did not allow it to increase the fare, they ought to be compensated, and hence, we extended the concession by 30 years,” he said during the Minister’s Question and Answer session yesterday.
At the same time, he said, ERL pocketed more than RM740 million in passenger service charges since it started operations in 2002.
It received RM741,234,205 from Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) up to September.
On the number of passengers, he said ERL had an average of 5.46 million passengers a year.
“In 2015, it recorded an increase of 20 per cent, or 11.03 million passengers, compared with 2014.
“However, the numbers dipped last year by 19 per cent to 8.9 million passengers following a fare increase,” he said in reply to a question by Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim (Independent-Bandar Tun Razak).
Aziz said ERL suffered losses for six consecutive years from 2009 to 2014.
As at last year, the accumulated post-tax losses stood at RM661.34 million.
ERL has not been able to make money because of the low fares and high operating cost, despite having achieved significant results since its services were extended to Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) in 2014.
Under a 30-year concession agreement, RM5 from the airport tax for each KLIA international passenger had to be paid to ERL, whether the passenger used ERL or not.
MAHB had been paying this RM5 and RM1 per person charge to ERL since April that year for outbound international and domestic passengers, respectively.