The government has claimed that backlogs at the country’s 15 Master’s Offices have been “reduced significantly”, with progress having been made in stabilising the IT systems to deal with the caseload, which increased dramatically during the various stages of lockdown in 2021.

The Master’s Office provide crucial services to the public in the administration of deceased estates and liquidations, as well as the registration and supervision of trusts. However, the functioning of the offices has been a contentious issue because of huge backlogs. The pandemic worsened the situation as Covid-19 deaths added to the bottleneck of deceased estates...