The Administ rator General’s Department it is keeping over 160 dormant files belonging to various beneficiaries of deceased estate who are supposed to receive around K200 million.
In an interview, senior assistant Administrator General Mayamiko Mandula said the beneficiaries are yet to come to her office to verify their details prior to disbursement of their funds.
He highlighted several challenges that affect her office to trace deceased civil servants’ relatives who allegedly did not show up to the department to verify their particulars.
Said Mandulo: “Processes of facilitating benefits of deceased estate is interdepartmental and take longer to be completed. Some beneficiaries give up or end up being deceased amid following up on their issues with various departments such as Auditor General’s, Accountant General’s and ours, in that particular order.
“While some beneficiaries get demotivated by a smaller amount of their terminal benefits, some live in rural areas and lack knowledge of the same.”
During a presentation made before a Parliamentary Cluster Committee on Government Assurances and Legal Affairs on March 4 2024, Administrator General Kondwani Jawati requested additional budgetary funding to purchase off-road vehicles for his office to trace such beneficiaries.
The request was made amid his department receiving a budgetary increment of 294 percent from K765 million in the current financial year ending March 31 [today] to K2.25 billion for the 2025/26 financial year.
When asked about the delays, Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs spokesperson Williams Banda urged the Administrator General’s Department to scale up its strategies of tracing unclaimed deceased estate.
He said: “Our job is to provide resources in line with cash flows. The Administrator General’s Department is better placed to provide answers on untraceable beneficiaries.
“Nonethel ess, publ ic awareness and sensitisation can urgently streamline processes at the Administrator General office to expedite the payment of gratuities to beneficiaries.”
Good governance observer Moses Mkandawire agreed with Banda, saying the department should enhance public awareness.
“If they claim that most people do not have knowledge about deceased estate, then let them engage the media and conduct widespread awareness campaigns,” he said.
On his part, Human Rights Defenders Coalition chairperson Gift Trapence stressed the need for the Administrator General’s Department to work by its mandate in remitting funds to all beneficiaries.
“Their system failure and failure to pay people should not contribute to failure to trace relatives of the deceased. They should assess their methods of tracing such people,” he said.
By March 5 2025, the Administrator General’s Department has disbursed about K14.9 billion to 1 690 out of 2 146 total registered beneficiaries. The department has also settled 107 out of 219 registered disputes about deceased estate.
