Why NAICOM Will No longer Have Federal Allocation — Daniel

Fola Daniel (l) receiving Inspenonline's good leadership award 

By: NSE ANTHONY-UKO

The Commissioner for Insurance, Mr Fola Daniel has explained that the decision to exclude the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) from the federal allocation was one taken by the commission and imposed by the federal government.

Daniel who disclosed this at the weekend, said that the commission has in recent years being remitting to government much more than it collects from federal allocation, thus indicating that it can stand on its own.

Recall that the Minister of State for Finance, Dr Yerima Ngama had in September while inaugurating a new board of the commission stated that NAICOM would no longer be part of federal budget they should be able to stand on their own.

Speaking during a seminar for insurance correspondents in Ilorin the Kwara State capital, Daniel stressed, "I want to state that we initiated that. Why did we do it? Last year alone, we returned about N600 million to the federal treasury and we got N300 million from the federal government. It does not make sense. So we decided that the federal government should keep its N300 million, while NAICOM keeps it own and whatever surplus I have I will send to the government coffers.

"We waste a lot of man hours at the National Assembly on a budget when I will be given N300million and I would then return N800 million, it does not make sense so we opted to be dropped out of the federal budget," he explained.

The commissioner also allayed fears that it would come down hard on operators in order to make more money to meet its expenses. He said "If industry players saw that as a gap and they think they would be penalised all the time, it does not make sense. We prefer that people comply with rules, we can do without a lot of the penalties we are imposing because it is rigorous and time wasting, I would rather want to focus on developing the industry than being a police man. It is not easy to be a policeman. So, we don’t need it, let them keep to the rules if they do, let us starve, we will be happy and concentrate on doing other things.

If they do not keep to the rules, we will penalize them, if we don’t do that NAICOM will be accused of dereliction of duty. That is it, we are not going to act like old tax collectors," the commissioner stated.

Source: Leadership Newspaper