By Ngozi Onyeakusi– The Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers has called on the federal government to reconsider its stand on the directive classifying the National Insurance Commission as revenue generating agency.

 

The President of the Council, Prince Babatunde Oguntade made this call at the retreat organized for members of the House Committee on Insurance and Actuarial Matters recently in Lagos.

 

Oguntade noted that the insurance supervisory fund levy being paid by insurance institutions was meant for the regulatory supervison and market development drive of the insurance industry by the Commission and placing it within the Single Treasury Account system would encumbers the financial solvency position of the commission and ostensibly hinders the market much desired insurance growth in the country.

 

The NCRIB President noted that the insurance industry which should be the linchpin of economic revival efforts of government in Nigeria was currently fragile and that the law makers should encourage government to exempt the Commission from the revenue generating agencies it was recently classified as.

 

He also appealed to the law makers to work expeditiously on the passage of the 2022 Consolidated Insurance Bill which when passed into law would cure the various inadequacies in the existing Insurance Act 2003 and the 1997 NAICOM Act, for the steady growth of the industry.

 

Oguntade expressed concerns that government institutions were lax in ensuring that human and material assets of government are adequately insured, imploring the law makers to reverse the tide by encouraging performance of the implementation of insurance budgets by Ministries, Departments and Agencies for the over all growth of the insurance and its accelerated contribution to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).