• Nigerian Legion Disowns Protesters
• Pension Board Silent
In and out of service, succour appears far from some serving and retired soldiers and policemen, as their welfare, entitlements and supply of needed equipment and ammunition to do their jobs lingers.
Last week’s protest by ex-soldiers at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja and reported abandonment or desertion from duty, as well as resignations for sundry reasons, could be an indication that Nigeria might be quietly creeping back to its worst military pension administration, which culminated in a major crisis between 2000 and 2004 before it was sanitised by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration.
Ebere Nwoji writes on the impact of the pandemic on the global insurance sector
As the second wave of the much dreaded coronavirus hits the globe, insurance sector all over the world is now under threat of several litigations filed by the global insuring public for diverse claims.
Indeed, the pandemic, has created a highly volatile and uncertain environment for insurance companies worldwide including in Nigeria, resulting in a litany of heightened risks for operators.
The situation has led to a rise in litigations against insurance firms and their regulatory bodies.
Here in Nigeria, issues surrounding the pandemic has truncated the accomplishment of the insurance industry’s recapitalisation exercise initiated by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) as both the insurance managers and their shareholders took the commission to court arguing that it should have dropped the recapitalisation exercise because of effect of the pandemic and Enders protest.
Beyond Salary: Towards Self Actualisation and Fulfilment is the title of the book under review. It is a primer on self-employment. In it, the author, a well-mentored and prolific writer, Babatunde Raimi, changed the African traditional perception of the people, most of whom are fixated on trading their certificates and wasting their productive lives on salaried jobs. They are baited by pensions, which nowadays, are often stolen by pension fund administrators with retired employees going hungry in the evening of their days. The book challenges you to actualise your gifts by finding self-fulfilment in entrepreneurship.
It was first published in 2018 by Lulu Press, Morrisville, North Carolina, USA. It has 182 pages, 10 chapters, a foreword, an introduction and a postscript where feedback from Raimi’s previous books was discussed.
Previous application to Treasury Department had been rejected over mortality, new entrant rate assumptions.
The American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund (AFM-EPF) is hoping the second time is the charm and has reapplied to the US Treasury Department for a reduction in benefits under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act (MPRA) to help stave off impending insolvency.
In August, the Treasury Department denied the fund’s application for a reduction in benefits, saying that the mortality rate and new entrant assumptions it used were “not reasonable under the standards in the regulations.” The department said the mortality assumption used in the recovery plan was based on a standard table that was used “without adequate justification or a demonstration of the manner in which the table properly reflects the mortality experience of the fund.”
By Obinna Chima
McKinsey & Company, a global management consultancy services company, has described the insurance sector in Nigeria and some other countries in Africa as one of the worldâs hot regions for insurance penetration.
The global firm stated this in a report titled: âAfricaâs insurance market is set for takeoff.â
It noted that steady economic growth in most countries combined with a largely underdeveloped insurance sector have positioned the continent as the second-fastest-growing region for insurance globally after Latin America.
Prior to the impact of COVID-19, the insurance market was expected to grow at compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) of seven per cent per annum between 2020 and 2025, nearly twice as fast as North America, over three times that of Europe, and better than Asiaâs six per cent, it stated.