Insurance industry catches flak

ALLEGED racist remarks and allegations of self-enrichment at the cost of the poor majority dominated a public parliamentary hearing on the role of insurance companies in Namibia yesterday.

“Insurance companies in Namibia are owned by South African companies and decisions are taken there. Millions of Namibia dollars are illegally taken out of the country each year,” said one participant, August Maletzky.”The chief executives come from South Africa and adequately qualified Namibians don’t have a chance.Let us not sidestep capable Namibians and have (insurance) companies run by hollow-minded nincompoops,” Maletzky criticised.The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economics, Natural Resources and Public Administration, chaired by Swapo Chief Whip Dr Hage Geingob, invited stakeholders and the public to air their views after a debate in the National Assembly earlier this year.CoD Member of Parliament Elma Dienda had tabled a motion arguing that insurance firms did not inform clients properly on policies, new products and the fine print in insurance contracts.She also alleged that insurance premiums were unaffordable for ordinary citizens in the long run.Maletzky also lashed out against the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa) which in his view did not exercise its watchdog duty well enough.”How competent are the people at Namfisa?” he asked the Committee.Appointments of black people in some management positions and to company boards were mere tokenism, in his view.Striking the same chord was Workers’ Revolutionary Party stalwart Hewatt Beukes, who called insurance companies “merchants of impoverishment.”If a black person stole N$10 000, the story would make front-page news, but the Namibian subsidiary of a big insurance company which had signed an admission of guilt in South Africa, did not get investigated, he charged.”We went to Namfisa boss Rainer Ritter about this, but Namfisa is after the black companies here, they already closed Inscon and City Funerals,” Beukes said.He then quoted from a 2006 International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on Namibia’s financial sector, which pointed out that Namfisa had to improve its supervision duties.”Namfisa does nothing, we cannot be boss boys for whites,” Beukes maintained.In the same vein, Swapo backbencher Tommy Nambahu said the “absolute dependency” of Namibia’s insurance sector on South Africa should stop.”South Africa is not the only country where we can turn to for best practices, why don’t we go to Kenya or Tanzania? We need not run for everything south of the Orange River,” he added.Nambahu also complained that companies did not inform their clients about insurance products properly and said after years of paying high premiums they hardly received any benefits.”People might one day get fed up with the status quo – that is how revolutions start,” he cautioned.Namfisa Life Insurance Manager John Uusiku rejected the allegations, saying laws and regulations allowed 35 per cent of profits made by insurance companies to be taken out of the country.Namfisa had a complaints department and was revising the Namfisa Act to provide for an Ombudsperson regarding the non-banking financial sector.”We also do a lot of investigations of companies in the sector, but we cannot run to the media after completing each and every investigation,” Uusiku stated.It was decided to establish a task force to dig deeper into these issues and to hold more meetings in order to exchange views.”Temperatures were running high today,” Committee Chairperson Dr Geingob said, “but next time I will not allow the use of language as we heard today.”Millions of Namibia dollars are illegally taken out of the country each year,” said one participant, August Maletzky.”The chief executives come from South Africa and adequately qualified Namibians don’t have a chance.Let us not sidestep capable Namibians and have (insurance) companies run by hollow-minded nincompoops,” Maletzky criticised.The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economics, Natural Resources and Public Administration, chaired by Swapo Chief Whip Dr Hage Geingob, invited stakeholders and the public to air their views after a debate in the National Assembly earlier this year.CoD Member of Parliament Elma Dienda had tabled a motion arguing that insurance firms did not inform clients properly on policies, new products and the fine print in insurance contracts.She also alleged that insurance premiums were unaffordable for ordinary citizens in the long run.Maletzky also lashed out against the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa) which in his view did not exercise its watchdog duty well enough.”How competent are the people at Namfisa?” he asked the Committee.Appointments of black people in some management positions and to company boards were mere tokenism, in his view.Striking the same chord was Workers’ Revolutionary Party stalwart Hewatt Beukes, who called insurance companies “merchants of impoverishment.”If a black person stole N$10 000, the story would make front-page news, but the Namibian subsidiary of a big insurance company which had signed an admission of guilt in South Africa, did not get investigated, he charged.”We went to Namfisa boss Rainer Ritter about this, but Namfisa is after the black companies here, they already closed Inscon and City Funerals,” Beukes said.He then quoted from a 2006 International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on Namibia’s financial sector, which pointed out that Namfisa had to improve its supervision duties.”Namfisa does nothing, we cannot be boss boys for whites,” Beukes maintained.In the same vein, Swapo backbencher Tommy Nambahu said the “absolute dependency” of Namibia’s insurance sector on South Africa should stop.”South Africa is not the only country where we can turn to for best practices, why don’t we go to Kenya or Tanzania? We need not run for everything south of the Orange River,” he added.Nambahu also complained that companies did not inform their clients about insurance products properly and said after years of paying high premiums they hardly received any benefits.”People might one day get fed up with the status quo – that is how revolutions start,” he cautioned.Namfisa Life Insurance Manager John Uusiku rejected the allegations, saying laws and regulations allowed 35 per cent of profits made by insurance companies to be taken out of the country.Namfisa had a complaints department and was revising the Namfisa Act to provide for an Ombudsperson regarding the non-banking financial sector.”We also do a lot of investigations of companies in the sector, but we cannot run to the media after completing each and every investigation,” Uusiku stated.It was decided to establish a task force to dig deeper into these issues and to hold more meetings in order to exchange views.”Temperatures were running high today,” Committee Chairperson Dr Geingob said, “but next time I will not allow the use of language as we heard today.”