At Least £30,000 is Lying Unclaimed in New Zealand Treasury

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 5618, 6 April 1931, Page 10

At Least £30,000 is Lying Unclaimed in New Zealand Treasury

GOVERNMENT MAKES NO EFFORT TO FIND THOSE ENTITLED TO MONEYS IN ITS POSSESSION. A sum of at least £30,000 is held by the New Zealand Treasury as unclaimed money, and Mr. S. P. Briggs, who makes a special work of tracing next-of-kin, says that the Treasury makes no attempt to let people know for whom unclaimed money is lying waiting. instances have been brought to notice where persons living in straitened circumstances have been entitled to large sums of money unclaimed in the Treasury. In some cases soldiers have died on service leaving considerable sums in banks. ’ . From 190.1, when the Unclaimed Moneys Act came into force, until 1925, £29,204 was paid into the Consolidated Fund, and the records show that of that sum less than £l5O has been claimed and refunded. In .1901, £2l was paid over. There were £4902 in 1905, £7055 in 1907, £2359 in 1925, and varying sums in the years in between. A sum of £8436 is held by thc‘ Treasury unclaimed under Section 69 of the Trustee Act, 190 S. Under the Finance Act, 1908, the Public Trustee is compelled to pay over all moneys held by him on any account whatsoever uiG claimed for six years.

Air. Briggs pointed out that there was a duty on the part of the Government to advertise particulars of unclaimed money. At a half per cent, charge on the money held, there would be more than sufficient, to pay the cost of publicity. In one instance a sum of over £IOO was lying in the Treasury to the credit of a North Island Maori. Private inquiry showed that the Maori had died years ago. His widow and two children, in a struggling position, were located and the money paid over. In another case, a considerable sum of money was left in a bank by a soldier who was killed early in the war, and not until last yeaT was the soldier’s mother privately informed that her son’s money was lying in the Treasury.