By Sola Alabadan
The Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of Federal Government that fail to insure its assets, risk being sanctioned, by the time the proposed guidelines on insurance of government assets become operational.
The Commissioner for Insurance, Sunday Thomas made this known this while speaking at the second edition of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, (CIIN) Business Outlook Seminar, today in Lagos. He delivered a paper titled: “The Regulator’s Perspective of the Theme paper”
Thomas, who was epresented by the Deputy Commissioner, Technical, Sabiu Abubakar, said the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), would be issuing the guidelines on insurance of government assets very soon, to ensure all assets of the government are adequately insured.
He said the commission has been collaborating with the Ministry of Finance, Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Head of Service, to come up with the guidelines.
According to him, the guidelines will ensure that all MDAs insure their assets as expected, pointing out that failure to do so, there will be sanction, even from the government.
For some time now, NAICOM had been lamenting that most assets of the State and Federal Government are never adequately and appropriately insured.
“It is very worrisome to the Commission that most assets and liabilities of government are never adequately and appropriately insured, which further accentuated the need for urgent measures to be put in place by the Commission to ensure that government gets value for money in the purchase of insurance by MDAs.”
Meanwhile, NAICOM has threatened to liquidate more insurance companies as part of efforts to sanitise the nation’s insurance industry.
“Recently two insurance companies’ licenses have been withdrawn and these are: Niger Insurance and Standard Alliance Insurance. Though managing the death/failure of financial institution is very demanding, nevertheless more may still be liquidated in order to sanitise the Insurance sectors,” he stated.
While speaking on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS17), he assured that the commission is not going back on the proposed implementation date of January 2023.
He added that the commission has set up sub-working groups to facilitate the migration, urging board members of each insurance firm to get prepared for the IFRS 17 implementation, especially as the deadline for migration was already at hand.