Nancy (center) receives a token of appreciation from Saftuyah while Sapiah looks on.
SIBU: Awareness on the importance of succession plans like estate planning, will-writing, and opening of trust account needs to be given greater attention.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nancy Shukri said this was because statistics from AmanahRaya has shown that awareness of such matters among Malaysians is still very low.
From statistics, she said a total of 50,418 individuals had written their wills at AmanahRaya last year, and for this year until March 31, the number is only 11,151.
“This indicates that many still lack understanding on the importance of succession planning,” Nancy added.
She was officiating at the AmanahRaya Bhd’s ‘Jejak Waris’ programme at Sibu Civic Centre yesterday.
The Batang Sadong MP noted that many people had wrongly viewed succession planning as something sensitive just because it is a matter associated with death.
She said another problem is that people here like to take things easy and do not seem to give will-writing any priority which is unlike people in western countries.
Nancy stressed that it is a wrong mentality adopt to only want to do any will-writing only after falling sick or bed-ridden.
“It is imperative that this attitude should change because taking up early planning can safeguard the wellbeing of families including the wellbeing of the next generations,” Nancy said.
She explained that AmanahRaya is a trustee for individuals and it offers succession planning services for estate management, wills, trusts, and the latest ‘Hibah’.
Thus people need to better understand the role of AmanahRaya as administrator of those important matters so that they can save their beneficiaries from having to face future hassles, she said.
She added that AmanahRaya has prepared various products to suit individual cases.
She said ‘Jejak Waris’ is an outreach programme to help the communities deal with the agency without they having travel to its branch office in Kuching.
Nancy also pointed out AmanahRaya charges its services far cheaper than those provided by the private agencies.
Meanwhile, on Minggu Saham Amanah Malaysia (MSAM) 2015, she said it is an investment avenue provided by the government to the people, and it ranks third in the state in terms of investment.
Earlier, AmanahRaya Sarawak branch head Saftuyah Adenan, who gave an introduction of the agency, said it has 19 branches nationwide.
She said the programme is especially to bring their services to the doorsteps of Sibu folk, and they had also set up a booth at the MSAM 2015 here.
Acting Sibu Resident Sapiah Daud was among those present at the function.