NATIONAL Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has concluded arrangements to train some selected journalists covering the insurance industry on the newly introduced International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

The Commissioner for Insurance, Mr. Fola Daniel, made this promise during the just concluded two-day training programme for insurance correspondents organised by the commission in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State recently.

In view of the fact that the Federal Government had informed operators in the economy that IFRS will be the new basis of financial reporting with effect from January 2012, the IFRS training for journalists has been scheduled to hold before the end of November this year.

The training programme, according to NAICOM, would go a long way to improve journalists’ knowledge on the new financial reporting standards being adopted by governments and companies in the country as well as help them to analyse the performance of companies operating within the economy correctly.

The NAICOM boss stated that many journalists, particularly those on finance beats do not really understand what the new standards mean and how it would affect financial reports and reporting in the country.

Daniel explained that this concern prompted the commission to take upon itself the responsibility to train some selected journalists on the new standards.

“This would ensure that when they report on the finances of companies, they would be in a better position to inform the general public on the true state of things in such companies,” he noted.

It would be recalled that NAICOM had earlier this year informed insurance and reinsurance companies in the country that they have to adopt the IFRS in their financial reporting by the end of this year.

The commission also gave insurance broking firms and other public interest entities in the industry up till next year to comply with the new standards in financial reporting.

The Commissioner for Insurance maintained that the adoption of IFRS would likely result in high quality, transparent and comparable financial statements based on internationally accepted modern accounting principles and concepts.

IFRS are principles-based standards, interpretations and framework adopted by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).  Its overall objective is to create a sound foundation for future accounting standards that are principles-based, internally consistent and internationally converged.

This means that from next year the standard used to prepare financial statement or the language used in preparing of financial statement will change from the Statements of Accounting Standards which were previously issued by the Nigerian Accounting Standards Board (NASB) to IFRS which are standards issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) based in the United Kingdom.