Story: Maxwelll Adombila Akalaare & Mary Ankrah
THE Ghana Reinsurance Company Limited (Ghana Re) has repeated calls on the National Insurance Commission (NIC) to institute measures that will help address the outflow of businesses from the country to foreign markets.
The company is of the view that getting corporate institutions in the country to first exhaust local capacity before resorting to foreign markets would help stem capital flight in the insurance industry and its rippling effects on the entire economy.
The Managing Director (MD) of Ghana Re, Mr Gustave Siale, made the appeal at the launch of the company’s 40th anniversary celebrations in Accra today (Friday).
The event is under the theme ‘40 Years of Ghana Re; Reaching New Heights.’
The company also used the occasion to donate GHc 51,000 to some needy institutions in the health and education sectors.
The beneficiaries are the Urology Department of the Medical Emergency Unit of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), GHc 5,000; the Accident Centre of KBTH, GHc 7,000; College of Health Science of KBTH, GHc 8,000; the Department of Child Health of KBTH, GHc 5,000.
The School of Medical Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), GHc 8,000; Student Financial Aid Office of the University of Ghana, GHc 6,000; Ghana Heart Foundation, GHc 6,000, and Ghana National Trust Fund, GHc 6,000.
Making the call, Mr Siale said “the objective for setting up this our dear company was to increase retention capacity within the country so as to reduce the outflow of foreign exchange.”
“The company, however, is contending with the flight of foreign exchange from the country not for want of the provision of capacity but the inability of some insurance companies to cede businesses to Ghana Re,” the MD bemoaned.
He was, however, grateful to the NIC for mooting a new insurance policy that would, among other things, address such challenges.
The Commissioner of Insurance at the NIC, Mrs Nyamikeh Kyiamah, later told the Daily Graphic that the NIC was confident the new policy would help stop the capital outflow.
While declining to comment further on how that will be done, Mrs Kyiamah said “we are looking at a situation where the companies will have to exhaust local capacity before taking businesses out.
“The new law will work and we are sure it will address all these challenges,” the commissioner assured.
Ghana Re was formed in 1972 as a department under the then State Insurance Corporation now SIC Insurance Company Limited.
It was, however, detached in 1984 and subsequently made a limited liability company in 1995, with the government as the sole owner.
The anniversary celebration, according to the Mr Siale, would span from now till the end of next month.
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