The National Insurance Commission, (NAICOM), the insurance industry regulatory body, has debunked the allegation of fraud in the Vehicle Insurance Sticker (VISER) project levied against it.

In his reaction to a newspaper publication (not Nigerian Tribune) on alleged vehicle insurance fraud that rocks NAICOM, Mr. Michael Umeh, Assistant Director, Corporate Affairs of the commission said the allegation is far from the truth.

He said, "The attention of the National Insurance Commission has been drawn to a publication on the Monday 31 July, 2006 Edition of the Vanguard Newspapers titled "Vehicle Insurance Fraud Rocks NAICOM". Let us start by making it abundantly clear that there is no fraud of any kind in NAICOM.

"The Vehicle Insurance Sticker (VISER) was printed and delivered since December, last year. The printing was done by PrintPoints International Ltd when the Security Printing and Minting Nig Ltd could not execute the contract. It was printed overseas by the company and cleared by Mc Fins Nig Ltd engaged by NAICOM for that purpose.

"However, papers submitted for payment to the Commission by the cwlearing company for executing the job were suspicious and the total charge of N18.4 million claimed by it and later reduced to N17.5 million was considered on the high side.

"On the strength of this, the board of directors of the Commission set up a committee to look into it. The committee did a good job and discovered that some of the clearing papers submitted by the agent were forged.

"The Commission, based on this, has since refused to process the payment submitted by the Agent for clearing of the VISER. In effect, not a kobo has been paid to the Clearing and Forwarding Agent, Mr. Mc Fins Nig Ltd.

"The issue of fraud does not arise in any form. The Commission should rather be commended on its "foresight in detecting the fraudulent intention of the clearing agent and NAICOM’s refusal to pay any bill to the agent.

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