Team proposes radical Aids funding

A team formed to suggest ways of funding Aids treatment wants the unclaimed billions of shillings in banks and other institutions to be dedicated to fighting the scourge.

The proposal is part of a raft of suggestions on sustainable financing of HIV programmes that are to be presented to the Cabinet for approval.

If it is adopted, it will be the first of its kind where such assets are appropriated as government revenue.

To the 600,000 people who need anti-retrovirals (ARVs), the approval would be a lifeline in sustaining them on uninterrupted HIV treatment and care for many years to come.

The proposal follows revelations that assets worth more than Sh10 billion have not been claimed for many years. The most recent government taskforce on unclaimed financial assets was to trace more than Sh9 billion.

Of this amount, Sh7.4 billion was with banks, Sh1.5 billion in firms listed on the stock exchange, Sh283 million with insurance companies, Sh243 million at the National Social Security Fund, and Sh67 million with the Kenya Power and Lighting Company.

However, other people have estimated that the amount of unclaimed assets maybe more than Sh100 billion once proper accounting has been done.

Actuaries estimate that 60 per cent or more of the unclaimed assets may not be handed to their owners or to their beneficiaries.

A technical working committee appointed by the National Aids Control Council has proposed that ways be established of transferring the unclaimed assets to the National Aids Trust Fund, once the fund is established.

“What we are presenting are proposals on the various options the government needs to consider in addressing the huge gap in HIV funding to be able to sustain thousands of Kenyans on ARVs,” said Prof Richard Muga, who chairs the committee.

Unclaimed financial assets are those which have not been claimed by their owners either because the person is dead, has travelled abroad, never bothered to follow up on the status of the assets or records are missing.

Examples of unclaimed financial assets include bank accounts that have been inactive for a long time, unclaimed income from stocks or dividends, uncollected retirement benefits and unclaimed death benefits from insurance companies.

Other sources of Aids treatment funding under consideration are putting a small levy on air travel, mobile calls, internet usage and remittances from the diaspora.