Insurers protest City infrastructure compensation

INSURANCE firms have asked the City of Kigali to lower compensation fees imposed on vehicles that knock down street lights, street vegetation and traffic lights.During a meeting with the city authorities over the issue, the insurers said they are incurring losses on compensation of the damaged city infrastructure. When a vehicle knocks a tree, it is compensated at Rwf1 million while a street light pole attracts a compensation charge of Rwf2.5 million.Knocking of traffic lights attracts the heaviest compensation of Rwf15 million.“It’s a very huge problem for us as insurers, we are incurring losses. The compensation fees for damaged city infrastructure brought to us by our clients are very high,” Jean Baptiste Ntukamazina, the chairman of insurers association said. Ntukamazina who is also the Managing of Director of COGEAR, said insurers want evaluation of the damaged palm trees be based on the cost of the tree and how long it has been in place.He couldn’t tell many of such cases his company receives.However, according to the insurers, despite this being the second meeting with the city authorities, there are no clear resolutions on the issue. The two parties first met in August last year but still failed to reach on a better way to solve the matter.“We are requesting the city officials to give all the details of the cost of these palm trees from the suppliers because there are those newly planted that cannot be valued the same with the mature ones,” Ntukamazina said.Information available indicates that a palm tree costs between Rwf10, 000 and 60,000 but if maintenance would be considered, the amount would go to over Rwf300, 000.Speaking to The New Times, the city mayor, Fidele Ndayisaba, said the beauty of the city is so important to the public saying that it should not be tempered with.“The street lights, city trees and traffic lights serve the public, and so, all these represent high value and when one is held responsible for the damage on one of these is supposed to face harsh punitive measures,” Ndayisaba said.Ndayisaba estimated that about two cases are registered in a week, saying with that trend should not worry the insurers.Insurers say they are still in discussion with KCC to solve the problem, and they believe a fair compensation package will be reached.

National

Insurers protest City infrastructure compensation