A research policy advocacy group, the Institute for Liberty and Policy Innovation (ILAPI) is calling for a review of the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) policy, which mandate banks to transfer funds in dormant individual accounts to the BoG’s account after some years of dormancy.
ILAPI holds the view that the current policy is unfair to the deceased families.
Act 930, 143(6), of the BoG’s policy, among others, enjoins banks to transfer funds of accounts that have been dormant for five years into government chest, after unsuccessful attempts to reach the next of kin within two years of dormancy. ILAPI says the policy is unfair and leads beneficiaries into poverty.
Again, the policy tasks the banks to reach out to the account holders through their next of kin within two years of inactivity.
However, most of the banks are not carrying this lawful duty, as regulators seem to look unconcerned.
The Executive Director for ILAPI, Peter Bismark Kwofie, raised the issue at a high-level policy dialogue patronised by lawyers, religious leaders, bankers and insurers, as well as reps from SSNIT, Birth and Death Registry and AG’s office.
It was themed: ‘Reducing Family Poverty via the Use of Next of Kin’.
Mr Kwofie noted that the present legal framework makes possession of inheritance so tedious, saying some beneficiaries even die along the line due to the difficulty and bureaucracy that characterise the process of accessing funds, investments and savings of deceased relatives.
This, he said, leads to the properties ending up in wrong and undeserving hands, thereby crippling families, spouses and children.
While urging banks to modify their account opening policy forms by simplifying and making them clear on the role and position of next of kin.
Mr Kwofie also called for the review of the laws to make access to inherited properties simpler, as this would help reduce related poverty.
The Member Parliament for Madina and a human rights lawyer, Francis Xavier Sosu, on his part, said the situation is difficult when the deceased properties include estates, saying the associated legal procedures prolong the process for years.
The lives of beneficiaries, according to him, deteriorate in the course, due to the huge financial costs involved, which most of such beneficiaries are unable to afford.
He urged all to put hands on deck towards bringing about the proposed reforms for the good of all.
A resource person from the Voxtua Legal Services, Ebenezer Isaac Teye Nubuor, lauded the advocacy, but said waiting for a nationwide consultation towards such reforms would constitute waiting till eternity.
He, therefore, suggested that financial institutions should be asked to specify the duration after which the next of kin of an account holder should be contacted in respect of a dormant account.
“This is one of the surest steps towards beginning the proposed reforms,” he noted.
Participants at the all-important dialogue agreed that even though the Intestate Succession Law, PNDC Law 111 came to address some of the challenges that bedevilled inheritance in Ghana.
