New WAICA president pledges to harness collective strength of Association

The newly elected President of the West Africa Insurance Companies Association (WAICA), Mr. Eddie Efekoha has pledged to galvanise the collective strength of members of WAICA for the socio-economic development of West Africa’

‘‘My election today presents another opportunity for all stakeholders in the WAICA family to re-appraise the state of WAICA and chart a new course to strengthen the body for more far-reaching contributions to the socio-economic development of our sub region.’’

‘‘I consider my election as the 40th President of this sub regional body at this time as a rare privilege and a great honour which I do not take for granted. There is no doubting the fact that WAICA has come a long way and I now have the onerous task of sustaining and building on the modest achievements recorded over the last five decades which have been made possible by the solid foundation laid by our founding fathers and sustained by successive leadership.

‘‘During my tenure, I hope to galvanize the collective knowledge, strength, and willpower of members to build the WAICA of our dream and aspiration. I pledge to continue to uphold and promote the ideals of WAICA as we collectively strive to take the Association to the next higher level by focusing more on areas that require improvement in order to actualize our desire to build a sound, efficient and financially stable WAICA capable of adding value to its members across West Africa.

‘‘In doing this, my immediate tasks will include the following: 1. Ensure proper restructuring and staffing of the Secretariat 2. Work with WAISA to harmonize policies and regulations within the sub region, and 3. Make WAICA a repository of information on insurance in West Africa.

‘‘To achieve this, he stated that the West African Insurance industry need to collectively, and in unity, step up its actions by being the backbone of the various economies, provide the much-required peace of mind for all stakeholders in these crucial times and create an enabling environment for industries and economies in the sub-region.’’

According to him, he promised to solemnly work hard to reinvent WAICA for more value addition and closely with other stakeholders including the Regulators across the sub-region to give WAICA the required impetus and support to serve the insurance industries and the nations better.

‘‘Together, from the chores of Gambia to Ghana to Liberia to Nigeria and to Sierra Leone, we shall work together to ensure that insurance takes its rightful place in the Anglophone West African States and will become the envy of all on how insurance should be practiced for profitability, in unity and with integrity, he affirmed.

During his swearing in as the 40th president of WAICA, he expressed his appreciation in particular to the Chairman of the occasion Venerable Olusola Ladipo-Ajayi, the commissioner for Insurance, Mr Sunday Thomas, and other commissioners of insurance from member countries here present.

Others included Elders of the industry, past presidents and council members of WAICA, Presidents/chairpersons of Trade bodies in the insurance industry such as NIA, NCRIB and ILAN, MDs of insurance institutions.