NAICOM THREATENS TO RETURN NON-IFRS COMPLIANT FINANCIAL REPORTS

The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) says it will return financial reports of insurance companies for 2010 that failed to meet the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Mr George Onekhena, Technical Director (Finance) in NAICOM, disclosed this in Lagos.

Onekhena said that this 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 staffers, on IFRS because 'we do not want to return any report submitted for vetting and approval. Financial reports for the financial year ended Dec. 31, 2010 must be IFRS compliant. This is in working towards 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 last financial year and that is why many of the annual general meetings of companies were held late,' he said. Onekhena said that the enlightenment on IFRS was still on, saying that by the time the National Accounting Standards (NAS) would be phased out by 2012, everybody would have been familiar with the IFRS.

The National Accounting Standard Board (NASB) 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 would be followed by others in 2013 and 2014. 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 NAS and IFRS for 2010 and 2011.