Insurers Says 2024 NNPC Insurance Selection Process Not Transparent

Participants in the bid to handle the current insurance programme of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPC) have described the outcome as transparency turned on its head.

The selection process for the one-year insurance programme started in November 2023 and ended in March 2024. However, brokers who bid to be part of the multi-million dollar package stated that this year's selection process has rubbished whatever fibre of credibility and integrity that is left of the NNPC.

One of the bidders who preferred anonymity to avoid being witch-hunted, accused those who handled the selection process of being inexperienced and unqualified to supervise such a big insurance transaction.

They wondered what qualified Mrs Margaret Aaron, the current Head of Risk Management and Insurance, to head such a critical department of the company. They alleged that she bastardised the selection process.

"This is a woman who knows nothing about Insurance. She has never read or written any insurance examination including the professional examination and then wonders why she is the head of such an important unit", stated the underwriter who also participated in the bidding process.

A section of insurance brokers who also bid, faulted the emergence of Zebra Insurance Brokers as the leader of the Non-oil insurance assets of the NNPC. They said the company lacks the requisite knowledge for such a big insurance package

They argued that it cannot be the leader in a transaction as huge as the insurance of the assets of the NNPC which runs into billions of dollars.

"In the history of NNPC Ltd and the public and private sector insurance, the 2024 insurance placement deserves a glorious place in the Guinness Book of Records for all the negative reasons", says another insurance broker.

"The major concern of the insurance industry is that NNPC Ltd should not cause the industry to spend huge amounts of money to put together bid documents (some of which are ridiculously unnecessary) including payment for what NNPC Ltd tagged bidding fee".

At the end of the day, what is expected to be a transparent, fair and equitable exercise is reduced to a theatrical exercise just to waste valuable time and resources of serious corporate organisations.