First published in The Straits Times, Feb 16, 2013

BY HOE PEI SHAN

SITTING somewhere among ministries and courts is about $68 million in unclaimed money that government agencies are holding for members of the public.

This figure is up from $60 million in 2005, and does not even include the amounts held by statutory boards which are not required to report their individual sums of unclaimed funds to the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

This is despite statutory boards being listed on the unclaimed monies online register, www.unclaimedmonies.gov.sg, which was launched in 2004 and is overseen by MOF (see box below).

Responding to inquiries from The Straits Times, an MOF spokesman said that as of Dec 31, 2012, the total amount of unclaimed monies from ministries and courts alone “is approximately $67.8 million”, and that “the bulk of the unclaimed monies are due to pawners, creditors of insolvent estates and beneficiaries of deceased estates”.

Those three sources of unclaimed monies fall under the purview of the Insolvency and Public Trustees Office (IPTO), which is overseen by the Ministry of Law.

Among ministries and courts, IPTO, or MinLaw, holds the biggest chunk of unclaimed monies, with $40 million now, even after some $45 million has been claimed since November 2004 when the online register was set up.

IPTO oversees the administration of individual and corporate insolvencies – under the Bankruptcy Act and the Companies Act respectively – as well as the administration of small intestate estates and un-nominated Central Provident Fund (CPF) monies as part of the statutory functions of the Public Trustee.

The licensing and regulation of moneylenders and pawnbrokers under the Moneylenders Act and Pawnbrokers Act also come under IPTO’s purview.

The Straits Times approached the three boards with the highest number of entries – the Land Transport Authority (5,783), the CPF Board (2,688) and the Housing Board (1,577) – but only the LTA would reveal the dollar amount of total unclaimed monies held.

The top sources of the $730,000 currently in the LTA’s custody are refunds of road tax, concession card balances, and administrative fees and composition fines.

The HDB declined to comment on dollar amounts altogether, but said its main sources of unclaimed monies are rental deposits and registration fees for the sale, resale and transfer of flats.

The CPF would only say that the unclaimed money it holds belongs to a “small percentage of CPF members (0.14 per cent) and amounts to 0.008 per cent of members’ monies”.

Given that as at the end of the third quarter of last year, the CPF had about $224.7 billion under its members’ accounts, as shown by public records, that would amount to roughly $18 million being held as unclaimed funds.

The future of unclaimed monies held differs across the agencies. Some roll over the monies unclaimed after six years into general government funds, while others allow claimants to collect the money even after an indefinite period (see box below).

hpeishan@sph.com.sg

At a glance

Ministry holding the highest amount of unclaimed monies: Ministry of Law with $40 million
Total amount owed by statutory boards: unknown (Not all are reported to the Ministry of Finance, and some boards are unwilling to reveal figures)
Statutory boards with the highest listed number of claimants: Land Transport Authority (5,783), the Central Provident Fund Board (2,688) and the Housing Board (1,577)
Land Transport Authority, the statutory board with the highest number of listed claimants, holds $730,000
Total number of claimants listed across all agencies: more than 14,000, of which almost 11,000 are under statutory boards
HOE PEI SHAN