Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Friday said part of what the Goodluck Jonathan administration did to improve the Nigerian economy was target setting.
She said this while calling for a massive education of insurance policy makers in the country to achieve deep insurance penetration among the populace.
Okonjo-Iweala told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Busan, South Korea, on the sideline of the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB), that insurance penetration in Africa and Nigeria in particular was very low.
“As the world is experiencing so much uncertainties and a lot of volatility in the economy, people really need to think more deeply about insurance and how they can help protect themselves and their families, even their countries against these risks,” she stated.
She said insurance penetration in Africa was as low as three per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and about 0.3 per cent of GDP in Nigeria, stressing the need for proper enlightenment and education of the populace.
“We really need to move forward; there is a lot of opportunities, so we need massive education and insurance companies must take some responsibilities by working with government in this direction.
“We should set ourselves some targets; we were beginning to do that earlier on when we were in government; to see if we could really, by 2020, 2025, 2030, set targets of having insurance penetrate deeply,” she said
