Ghanaian insurance brokers have urged the government to include measures protecting people’s investments in the insurance business in the 2023 Budget Statement and Economic Policy.
The request comes as Ghana gets ready to launch a domestic economic plan under an IMF loan support program to boost macroeconomic confidence and decrease the suffering Ghanaians are now experiencing.
According to information from the National Insurance Commission (NIC), the insurance industry by the end of 2020 had assets worth GHS8 billion and premiums at GHS4.2 billion, and it made up 2% of the country’s GDP (GDP).
Mr Shaibu Ali, the President of the Insurance Brokers Association of Ghana (IBAG), who underscored the contribution of the insurance sector to economic growth and the support it gave to people in times of disasters, asked the Government to make sure that any restructuring did not affect the sector.
He said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at a media soirée, which was to deepen the relationship between IBAG and the media fraternity and formed part of activities for this year’s Broker Awareness Month.
Mr Ali said: “We appreciate that there’s a problem and that problem must be fixed heads on, but our investments must be protected by the Government.”
He noted IBAG had started educating students in various Senior High Schools across the country to clarify the myth about insurance and said: “We need to demystify insurance, and we believe we can do this by getting closer to the younger ones still in school”.
Mr Stephen Kwarteng Yeboah, the Vice President of IBAG, who emphasised the need to protect the investment in the insurance sector asked the Government to exclude the sector in any restructuring exercise.
“Because we cannot pay for the cost of borrowing, if there is any restructuring, the insurance sector should be isolated, otherwise it’s going to be a disaster for the nation,” Mr Yeboah said.
He added that: “When it comes to the insurance, it is very delicate and the day that people lose hope in the insurance company we are dead, and because we’re already having problems with trust in the public, insurance is our last hope when everything is gone.”
Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has assured that talks with the IMF would not lead to any investor losing money through a reduction in the face value of government bonds (haircut).