By Precious D Freeman
The House of Representatives has cited Authorities of the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation, the Central Bank of Liberia and the Liberia Revenue Authority to appear on February 21, 2023 to state why they are not complying with the law establishing the National Insurance Corporation of Liberia (NICOL).
Plenary reached the decision during the 9th day sitting of the 1st quarter of the 6th session, following a communication from Representatives Johnson Gwaikolo, Marvin Cole, Dorwohn Gleekia, and P. Mike Jurry.
The law, was enacted on February 9, 1984 (PRC Decree 81) established the National Insurance Corporation of Liberia – under Section III-Powers of the Corporation.
It states that the Corporation shall have the exclusive power to affect all insurances of the Government of Liberia, Public Corporations and any other business in which the Government of Liberia is 50% shareholder or more.
According to them, despite the lack of cooperation by these Ministries and Agencies, we have seen a great deal of progress by the current Management Team of NICOL towards the resuscitation of the Corporation.
They added that in an effort to lead by example, the House of Representatives placed the insurance of the Central Administration staffers with the National Insurance Corporation of Liberia in June of 2022.
At the same time, the leadership of the House of Representatives invited several ministries and agencies last year to inquire why they have not been complying with the law by placing their insurances with the National Insurance Corporation of Liberia.
“But, up to present, there has been no progress made on the part of those ministries and agencies in complying with the law; our research uncovered that there are presently about 14 registered insurance companies in the country, of which the majority of them are foreign owned,” the lawmakers stated.
The proponents said, “These companies are the ones lobbying for these government insurances from the various Government Ministries and Agencies and taking the proceeds to their respective countries while our state-owned insurance corporation is been neglected.”
