How sacked directors of Goldlink Insurance acquired shares without consideration

Following the breakdown of corporate governance rule in insurance industry, an underwriter, Goldlink Insurance Plc has been fingered in corrupt practices as the former chairman and sacked directors accrued shares to themselves without paying for it.

NEWSVERGE report that the interim management board of Goldlink Insurance Plc, set up in 2012 by the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), in a share capital audit that looked into the activities of the former management, observed that about 2.5 billion shares were inappropriately issued to selected shareholders in the company without considerations.

“To support the creation of these bubble shares, the Head Office Building and other assets were revalued and inflated by about N1.5 billion. The revaluation surplus was used in part to create these shares against sound accounting standards and principles. Currently, the interim management board has recovered 1.2 billion shares through voluntary surrender and about 134 million shares by way of forfeiture,” it report stated.

It was also discovered that about 1.2 billion share unit were disposed of by some of the beneficiaries and that the interim management board has commenced the process of recovering the disposed shares and associated dividends of about N125 million.

Femi Okunniyi, sacked Managing Director of Goldlink Insurance Plc

Commissioner for Insurance, Alhaji Mohammed Kari, while addressing Insurance and finance Correspondents at the annual training for the journalists in Gombe State at the weekend,  said the process of investigations carried out by forensic review on Goldlink Insurance found out that some of the  directors were claiming to be majority shareholders but they were not.

Following the investigation, Kari explained that the directors were directed to relinquish their shares and they only release few but still could not escape hammer of the commission.

He maintained that without a shared audit, the commission would not have been able to find out the actual shareholders of these companies.

Kari further said the Commission had collaborated with other regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to see how they can recover these unpaid shares where its possible.

He, however, said the commission has referred some of these issues to the relevant law enforcement agencies to properly address these issues.

Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Insurance, Alhaji Mohammed Kari, insisted that those directors who had looted the companies they oversee or acquire shares to themselves without paying for them and have in turn sold them to third party have also been dragged to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to defend themselves.