ECOWAS Brown Card Liberia National Bureau has been elected Vice Chair at the level of the Council of Bureaux.
Liberia was elected due to its good standing (debt-free) with the ECOWAS Brown Card Scheme following the Council of Bureaux 40th General Assembly Ordinary Session, held from November 18—22, 2024 recently in Lome, the Republic of Togo.
The ordinary session was attended by eleven (11) member states out of fourteen (14), with Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger absent from the general assembly due to their unpaid contributions on the system’s operations.
According to Sahr A. Kaba, Executive Secretary of the National Bureau of ECOWAS Brown Card Insurance Scheme, Liberia’s Vice Chair elected portfolio is being occupied by Habib DIA, who also happens to be the Managing Director of Sunu Assurances, an insurance company operating in Liberia which has been in compliance with the ECOWAS Brown Card Protocol.
He disclosed that Liberia, during the just-ended general assembly, was relieved of all her obligations or debts to the ECOWAS Brown Card Insurance Scheme from March 2024—November 2024.
Previously, Kaba disclosed, Liberia was highly indebted in the tone of 70 million CFA.
He recalled that in some part of this year the National Bureau of the ECOWAS Brown Card paid host to the Prominent Secretary from Lome, Togo, and that the purpose of the official visit was to digitalize the motor insurance protocol, adding that the 40th General Assembly was a follow-up of this meeting.
Briefing the press following Liberia’s election as Vice Chair of the ECOWAS Brown Card on the Council of Bureaux, the National Bureau Executive Secretary also said Liberia was relieved from all its obligations because of the National Policy statement uttered by Transport Minister, Sirleaf Ralph Tyler, ensuring that the ministry will enforce to the letter the Compulsory Motor Third Party Liability Insurance by law, which came into being by an Act published in 1978.
Kaba said the law provides that, “No vehicle whatsoever should ply the principal streets and highway of the Republic of Liberia without the Compulsory Third Party Motor Insurance coverage.”
The National Bureau executive secretary voiced that the extension version of this law is extended to the ECOWAS Brown Card, which came into being on May 29, 1982 and signed in Cotonue, Benin, as Liberia was the first country in the sub-region to ratify that protocol as reflected in its 1986 Constitution.
Touching on the plan underway to digitalize motor insurance in Liberia, in keeping with the ECOWAS Brown Card protocol, Kaba asserted that when the nation’s motor insurance is digitalized, as it is working in Sierra Leone and Ghana, amongst others, it will prevent fraudsters and fake insurance in the sector which came about months back here with victims being left vulnerable , stating this will help curb fraudsters from taking away legitimate motor insurance premium for their personal aggrandizement.
He said when the system is digitalized no insurance company will issue to any motorist or vehicle insurance policy in Liberia without attachment of the ECOWAS Brown Card, in furtherance of the Supplementary Act Protocol signed in Accra, Ghana in June 19,2021 which former President George M. Weah affixed his signature to. It has since been ratified by the country.
However, the National Bureau of Liberia Executive Secretary, Sahr A. Kaba, used the occasion to call for closer ties between relevant government agencies, stakeholders and insurance companies, including the Insurance Association of Liberia, to ensure that war is declared against fraudsters fond of issuing fake insurance policies without ECOWAS Brown Card, thus weeding them from the insurance industry.
Meanwhile, at the end of the 40th General Assembly of the ECOWAS Brown Card Insurance Scheme, a 10-count resolution was issued.
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) under Resolution 1, the AGM unanimously adopted the 2024 Activity Report of the Council of Bureaux by the Secretary General and gave full approval to the Executive Committee, while resolution 2 called for an audit report on the financial statements for the year ended December 31,2023 which was accepted and given its approval.
In the same vein, resolution 3 approved the budget for the 2025 fiscal year, setting revenue and expenditure at 442,092,555 CFA francs.
The AGM, that is the Annual General Meeting, under resolution 4 hailed countries which have implemented the digitalization of the ECOWAS Brown Card certificate, including Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone, while approving the issuance of digital Brown Card alongside the physical certificate.
The AGM encouraged other member states to follow the footsteps of countries that have automated and digitalized the issuance of brown card certificates, and harmonize the digitalized of the brown card certificates as well as accompanied by that of the Permanent General Secretariat.
At the same time, the AGM instructs the Executive Committee to form a Steering Committee responsible for presenting a business plan for the construction of a headquarters in accordance with the five-year strategic plan 2023—2027.