Int’l Insurance Institute clocks 50, inaugurates head office edifice.

The minister used the event to trace the birth of the institution to 1974, when 14 French-speaking African countries in the West and Central African sub regions signed an agreement to create a common insurance institution to train competent manpower to serve their needs.

The minister announced that the edifice was a collective effort in which all the 14 member states made significant financial and other forms of contribution to enable the project see the light of day.

Cameroon was chosen to host the head office; Benin Republic produces the Director General; while Coat d´Ivoire holds the post of Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Minister Motaze showered praises on the contractors, especially China Shan Ship Corporation for putting in what the Finance boss categorised as the needed expertise to bring out the grandeur envisaged for an edifice of such magnitude and international cloud.

He called on the administration of the school to leave no stone unturned in ensuring that their strategic programmes are implemented to the letter, especially those that are intended to modernise and upgrade courses to meet international standards and changing times. 

He urged that the pioneering initiative given birth by the 14 Francophone African countries continues to animate the African insurance landscape.

School administration speaks

The Director General of the school, Odon Bolarinwa Koupaki, said IIA has over the past 50 years lived up to its mission statement of training insurance practitioners at all levels of professionalisation. 

They started in a wooden structure in the Mini-Feme neighbourhood of Yaounde; and then moved to a rented structure in the Nylon Bastos area, and finally moved to the present site, but in a temporary structure. 

The contract to build a permanent structure was awarded in 2014. The work started in the same year; and now they are telling the success story.

The Director General unveiled that they started by offering certificate courses; they upgraded and started offering degree courses, and now people pursue post-graduate programmes in various areas of insurance in the institute.

He added that their services have been modernised, with its splendid library going digital. This, he said, means that people can stay away from the school and carry out research using the library through distant learning.

“The Institute is a veritable training centre, a research institute, a documentation centre, to send out insurance stuff to those in need. It has the capability of bringing technical assistance in the form of missions, consultations and specific study areas,” the Director General disclosed. 

He assured that the Institute collaborates closely with professional organisations in the insurance sector, and other higher institutions of learning in all the 14 member countries.

For the Institute to function optimally, the Council of Ministers, the Administrative Council, the Pedagogic Council, the Directorate General and the Council of Lecturers work hand in glove to produce and deliver the desired results.

The Director General also gave an in-depth analysis of the course contents of both the old and the new programmes that the Institute now offers. 

The ceremony ended with the Finance Minister and his entourage taking a guided tour of the sumptuous edifice.