At odds with Registrar of Unclaimed Money

I AM a chartered company secretary under the Charter of The Queen of England. I am from a profession which strictly upholds honesty, trustworthiness, responsibility and accountability, all of which have been ingrained into my brain. No matter what flaws and faults you can find with the British, they always took responsibility.

One of the important things I noted about our Finance Ministry is the Registrar of Unclaimed Money.

When I retired and had time on my hands to look through my personal affairs, I discovered that I have a number of savings books which I did not officially close, dividends which I had not received as I had changed addresses and not informed the relevant share registrars, etc.

When I contacted the Registrar of Unclaimed Money, I was horrified to learn that they had only started computerising records from 2005 onwards. It was all manually done before this.

How do they manually manage money from millions of Malaysians and keep track? I was so shocked that I advised the officer who was talking to me about the gravity of a trustee.

When I asked about making a claim, the officer coolly told me to bring all the old bank books and dividend warrants! I was floored.

By right, if there is money held in trust by the Registrar of Unclaimed Money on my behalf, my identity card (IC) should be sufficient. All transactions involving money are done under my name with the IC. As such, all I should have to do is present my IC and any money held by the Registrar of Unclaimed Money should be refunded to me with no questions asked, no forms to be filled, and no verification from my bank that the money is being transferred into my account.

I urge the Finance Minister to look into the accounts of the Registrar of Unclaimed Money as there is a lot of money there and lots of Malaysians who do not know or care about their unclaimed money. I trust our new Finance Minister and I know he will do a good job and make it easy for retirees and all to claim their money from the Registrar of Unclaimed Money. SHEEDA THE BAKER Subang Jaya