Duffuor calls on SIC Life to reach out to small businesses
The minister urged the life assurance company to combine microfinance with micro-insurance and assist small and medium-scale companies to grow.
Dr Duffour made the call when the management of SIC Life presented a cheque to the minister as part-payment of its dividend to the government.
Although the face value of the cheque was not disclosed, management of the company later told the Daily Graphic that the amount represented 76 per cent of the total dividend due to the government, which owns the majority stake in the company,
SIC Life also paid dividend to SIC Insurance Company Ltd, the minority shareholder.
The company was crafted in response to the new insurance law which stipulates the separation of the life business from general business.
This means that SIC Life has been operating for barely four years, but managed to declare dividend.
The finance minister commended the management team for their untiring efforts and charged them to go for more life business both in the public and private sector in order to pay more dividend in the coming years.
He said their microfinance and insurance products were strategic measures to help alleviate poverty in rural areas.
The Chief Executive Officer of SIC Life, Mr Issah Anafure, announced that the life assurance company had just started another subsidiary which would be doing microfinancing.
He said with the head office in Accra, the company would soon open branches in busy economic centres such as Techiman and other communities in the Brong Ahafo Region.
The CEO said the company was working hard to penetrate the life assurance market and expressed the hope that it would pay bigger dividends in the years ahead.
Source: Daily Graphic