Posted by From ISAAC ANUMIHE, Abuja on
Former management of NICON Insurance plc has been sacked and a new board of directors appointed. Also, the new management has given the outgoing one 24 hours to complete all handing over processes while assuring junior staff of their jobs as long as they have no criminal record.
…New board of directors appointed
Former management of NICON Insurance plc has been sacked and a new board of directors appointed. Also, the new management has given the outgoing one 24 hours to complete all handing over processes while assuring junior staff of their jobs as long as they have no criminal record.
This followed the privatisation of the foremost insurance company by the Federal Government a couple of days ago.
Addressing newsmen Wednesday in Abuja, the new chief executive of the corporation, Mr Jimoh Ibrahim (who replaced the outgoing Managing Director, Ms Prisca Soares) promised that the new board would inject new blood into the management of NICON, adding that the board had directed that the corporation should be capitalised through capital injection to the tune of N20 billion within 90 days.
According to him, the new management would not do initial public offer till the second phase of recapitalisation and that the second phase, which must be completed before the deadline by Nigerian Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in February 2007, would raise the capital base to N50 billion.
He expressed the management's willingness to acquire other insurance companies that may not meet the capital base so as to reduce casualties and enhance government policy. "Our long-term objective is to ensure that NICON is located in at least every 15 kilometres close to your house and deliver a NICON that will be a household name," he said.
On staff welfare, Jimoh said that the new management would embark on intensive training and retraining of staff, but added that only the untrainable ones would be sacked. "Only staff that add no value to the company will be expected to leave. Any staffer who shows capacity or readiness to subject himself to training and retraining need not worry about the security of job. The immediate objective of the new management is to promote staff and realign them to a major focus, and mid-career staff also will be given more power to take more challenges in a decentralised management that will be witnessed shortly," he said.
It would be recalled that Global Fleet bidded $46.6million to emerge the preferred bidder of NICON Insurance, beating Industrial and General Insurance(IGI),Zenith Insurance and Assurance Acquisition Limited.