26 Mar 2018

Among the midst of troubles, Bona Life Insurance has experienced in the past years involving its shareholders, Bona Life’s chief executive officer, Ms Regina Sikalesele-Vaka has assured its clients not be wary of their funds.

Speaking at a press briefing on March 22 in Gaborone, the CEO of the first citizen owned life insurance company cleared the context on claims that have been made about the company’s financial standing, shareholders and its regulatory management.

She assured Bona Life clients that their interests were protected, citing the public dispute between Botswana Public Officers Pension Fund (BPOPF) and Botswana Opportunity Partnership (BOP) (partnership between BPOPF and Capital Management Bank(CMB)).

Bona Life, which is a company born from Mauritian Bramer Life, due to the latter’s curatorship’s crisis in Mauritius, has since been in establishment since 2015.

Capital Management Bank, BOP and Ms Sikalesele-Vaka were appointed as indirect stakeholders of the company with CMB holding 40 per cent.

In assurance to the company’s clients, she stated that NBFIRA was a regulator created by an Act of Parliament to protect clients of non-bank financial institutions and maintain stability.

“Bona Life has candidly reported its shareholders’ challenges to the regulator to enable it to perform its role of protecting Bona Life clients in accordance with the law,” the CEO assured.

Ms Sikalesele-Vaka also pointed out that Bona Life was still a startup company.

“A start-up life-insurance company is expected to make financial losses for the first three to five years, so the financial position of Bona Life has not yet stabilised and is still fluctuating,” she said.

She also dismissed allegations of Bona Life’s market value being zero.

“Bona Life has accumulated some intrinsic value that is embedded in the company and has no zero value,” she confirmed.

Ms Sikalesele-Vaka also dismissed allegations stated in a letter that was circulating within the public, stating that the author of the letter had no full powers in the company’s future.

She however said that they had engaged legal advice on addressing the letter and could not comment further than that.

 Ms Sikalesele-Vaka shared her commitment for Bona Life’s future and her wish to see the company grow as the first citizen owned company.

She also dismissed allegations of her ever selling her company’s stake. BOPA