By Charles Bwogi

THE National Insurance Corporation (NIC) has paid a sh323m dividend to the Government.

“This is in view of the positive performance recorded by the company last year,” NIC’s chairman Remi Olowude said.

Charles Tukacungurwa, one of the directors, said privatisation of the company to Industrial and General Insurance (IGI) of Nigeria had started to pay off.

“While still run by the Government, the company always failed to make profits even with the subsidies the Government used to extend to it,” Tukacungurwa explained.

In 2005, the Government sold 60% of its shares in NIC to IGI.

However, the Government has delayed to offload the remaining 40%, yet it was supposed to do so in 18 months after the take-over by IGI.

“The board of directors decided that the company’s profitability and yield must be established over three years in order to attract investors and obtain a high stock value for NIC shares,” Olowude explained.

He said the initial public offer of the company would be in 2008.

Finance state minister in charge of general duties, Fred Omach, received the cheque on behalf of the Government at the NIC building in Kampala.

The Merchant Bank of East Africa – MBEA, Data Bank of Ghana and Dyers and Blair’s were appointed by the Government as transaction advisers.

The company has expanded its operations to Juba, southern Sudan, becoming the first Ugandan insurance company to do so.