By Agency Reporter

The National Insurance Commission has said it will return the 2010 financial reports of insurance companies that fail to meet the International Financial Reporting Standards.

The Technical Director, Finance, NAICOM, Mr. George Onekhena, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos on Tuesday.

Onekhena said that the decision to return the reports was in line with the requirement that all quoted companies must be IFRS compliant by 2012.

According to him, the commission has sensitised all the operators, especially accounts workers, on IFRS because “we do not want to return any report submitted for vetting and approval.”

He said, “Financial reports for the financial year ended December 31, 2010 must be IFRS compliant. This is in working towards the 2012 deadline for insurance companies to adopt it.

“We, at the commission, do not expect to return any company’s 2010 financial reports turned in for vetting and approval. This exercise started the last financial year and that is why many of the annual general meetings of companies were held late.”

Onekhena said that enlightenment on IFRS was still on, saying that by the time the National Accounting Standards would be phased out in 2012, everybody would have been familiar with the IFRS.

NAN reports that the National Accounting Standard Board has mapped out the adoption of IFRS in three phases for the various categories of companies in Nigeria.

The adoption of IFRS will start with publicly quoted companies in 2012 and will be followed by others in 2013 and 2014.

NAN also reports that that by 2015, the public sector will be using the Internal Public Sector Accounting Standards.

Meanwhile, all companies are expected to present two financial reports using the NAS and IFRS for 2010 and 2011.

 

Source: Punch