NCRIB takes up issues of inappropriate bidding fees
By Asishana John
The Nigerian council of Registered Insurance brokers(NCRIB) has been engaging ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) to dissuade them from requesting high bidding fees from Insurance Brokers.
In this direction, the president of the council, Dr, (Mrs.) Bola Onigbogi and her management team have taken it upon themselves to engage some of those agencies who are in the habit of charging exorbitant bidding fees as a pre- qualification of Brokers engagement on their accounts.
President Onigbogi said no leader is sustained without progress. She also talked about the state of security that the government should express mis-comfort about improving insecurity in our nation and to improve economy generally.
Addressing Brokers, President Onigbogi noted that “the Management finds payment of high bidding fee noxious and out of sync with councils position on Brokers bidding process. We are hereby requesting all members to refrain from the payment of high bidding fee.”
At a meeting of NCRIS and top insurance brokers on Tuesday in Lagos at the NCRIB Secretariat, that the discussions centred on appropriate response to the speculation of imminent review of capital base for brokers from the present N5 million to N100 million, an increase of 1,900 per cent, which brokers say is arbitrary.
Although the discussions touched on threats to the broking profession and some of the anti-broking laws being introduced into the insurance law dominated the meeting.
A broker who pleaded anonymity said: “The proposed capital base is arbitrary and ill-advised at this moment, considering the fragility of the Nigerian insurance market today. You will recall that at a stage, there were speculations that the capital base for stockbrokers should be increased to N100 million. The initiative failed at a time when activities at the capital market was at its peak, talk less of now advocating such increase in capital base for the insurance brokers.”
According to him, what NAICOM should concentrate on is genuine market development with stronger focus on product development and extensive public awareness campaign, which are part of the cardinal mandates of the Commission.”
