Ethiopian Airlines to commence flights to Enugu on October 1

By Favour Nnabugwu

 

 

Africa’s largest airline, Ethiopian Airlines has announced that it will resume flights to Enugu Airport from the 1st of October, two years after the east African giant suspended flights to the southeastern state of Nigeria.

This was disclosed in a statement by its General Manager, Shimeles Arage, in Lagos on Sunday, stating that every week there would be a flight on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, with B787 Dreamliner, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

“Oct. 1 is Nigeria’s Independence Day and the flight to Enugu on that day will reinforce Ethiopian Airline’s good relations with Nigeria since the first flight to Nigeria in 1960,” Arage said.

He added that flights were suspended from Enugu due to renovations of the airport done by the FG to improve the runway.

“Before the closure of the airport for runway repairs, Ethiopian was the only international airline flying to Enugu,” he added.

African insurers set to benefit from AfCFTA

By admin

 

 

The African insurance sector is optimistic about the new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) but wants to see regulatory integration, according to a new survey.

According to the Africa Insurance Pulse 1/2021, launched by the Africa Insurance Organisation (AIO), the AfCFTA will create a single market covering more than 1.2 billion people, with a current gross domestic product of more than $2.5trn. The free flow of goods, services, people and capital under the AfCFTA is expected to boost intra-African trade and strengthen the competitiveness of African companies.

Jean Baptiste Ntukamazina, secretary general of the AIO, said: “The African insurance sector is ideally positioned to provide security, economic and financial stability, and enable the development of societies and economies in Africa through its risk knowledge and risk transfer solutions. However, to play this important role, African insurers need integration or even harmonisation of insurance regulations.”

The maturity of the insurance market is low in most African countries. Insurance penetration is expected to increase in African markets where insurance growth has been accompanied by structural reforms, such as market liberalisation, compulsory insurance enforcement, wider distribution, public-private partnerships, and a regulatory system promoting innovation and market access.

The trend towards tighter capital requirements for insurance companies to ensure their solvency will establish stronger companies, promote job creation and build capacity in the industry. These reforms are crucial to increase the security and performance of the continent’s insurers.

(Re)insurance players have much to gain from a continent-wide single market. Once fully implemented, the eight strategic objectives of the AfCFTA will benefit (re)insurance companies in Africa directly or indirectly. As a result, the expectations of the various insurance stakeholders for the AfCFTA are high.

When asked about the top three challenges for a successful implementation of the AfCFTA, respondents most frequently cited increased competitiveness, indicating that not all countries, sectors and economic actors are equally prepared to benefit from the implementation of a common market.

Another top concern of the interviewed market participants was that insurance regulation differs widely across the continent and often poses hurdles to market access. Therefore, almost all respondents, including regulators and policymakers, agreed that the current regulatory differences present a major obstacle to integrating African (re)insurance markets

African agriculture insurance set for boom

By admin

 

 

Kenya has unveiled a policy paper to boost uptake of agricultural underwriting in a country where the cover accounts for less than 1% of the total insurance premiums, exposing many farmers to losses.

The country unveiled the National Agricultural Insurance Policy – the first policy to guide agricultural underwriting – as the state hopes to deepen public-private partnerships in spurring uptake of livestock and crop insurance among farmers.

The move came as Continental Re published a report on agriculture insurance, in which experts from across the world cited the need for innovation.

The report reveals that, for insurers, some interesting trends have emerged through the Covid-19 pandemic as a split in buying habits between rural and urban policyholders across Africa accelerated.

Capitalising on that surge in interest in insurance among rural communities will not be straightforward, as Evance Rabong’o, agricultural lead at Continental Re, explains in the report.

“There are difficulties in persuading farmers, for example, to buy insurance for longer-term risks, such as crop protection,” he warns, adding: “Now is the time for the insurance sector to be creative and to look at not just designing fit-for-purpose products but also to look at the way in which insurance is sold.”

For example, he says, it is hard to access finance to buy insurance policies but if insurers were prepared to reassess when they collected premiums, the products might become easier to sell.

This could involve, for example, collecting premiums at harvest time, when the farmer has greater spending power. It could also involve working more closely with banks to realign available finance with insurance protections, or working with governments to allow governments and policyholders to share the burden of the cost of insurance.

Richard Leftley, CEO of Micro Insurance, adds: “With Covid-19 we noticed a significant uptick in demand for health insurance, as people become more aware of the costs associated with being hospitalised. As a result, we saw a steady increase in sales for our very basic health cover, including among policyholders from the agricultural sector.”

While he says that was no surprise, he had not expected the trend that then emerged.

“Those working in the agricultural sector were among the best when it came to payments,” he says.

As insurers, Mr Leftley says, there is always recognition that it is one thing to sell insurance but another thing to get paid from the low-income sector.

“What we saw was an urban-sector spike in health insurance purchases but we failed to collect the premiums. In fact, the payment collection success rate was significantly lower than pre-lockdown, because people were losing their jobs and were worried about their finances.

“In contrast, in the rural sector, farmers continued to make payments because they were less affected by lockdowns and they were able to maintain their incomes,” he states.

Children buried mother, Patience Bisan Oghoghome on September 18, 2021

Mr Blacky Oghoghome lost his wife of over 40years, Late Mrs Patience Bisan Oghoghome to the cold hands of death on June 24, 2021 for which Service of Song was held on Thursday, September 16, 2021 and was laid to rest on Saturday, 18, 2021.

CAPTION

Below are the children during the burial service. L – Betty Oghoghome, the first daughter; Elohor Oghoghome, the 3rd daughter; Endurance Oghoghome, the first son;  Obaro Oghoghome, the 2nd son and the last born  and Efe Oghoghome, 2nd daughter during the burial of their mother, Late Mrs Patience Bisan Oghoghome in Ugbokodo, Okpe local government, Delta State

The corpse of late Mrs Patience Bisan Oghoghomr lying in state during the event