By Our Reporters
On Tuesday morning Traffic Police deputy Director Bazil Mugisha drove to UAP Old Mutual headquarters in Nakawa where he was received by Ag MD Stephen Chikovore, CFO Allan Kyambadde and Head Marketing & Sales Dogo Singh Sherman. Representing his boss Dr. Kasiima, Mugisha was here to receive road safety furniture (basically signages communicating different road signs) which Uganda’s insurance market leader donated to the Uganda Police Force as part of its broader Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program. According to CFO Kyambadde, the 108 signages cost UAP Shs98m and Marketing Manager Dogo says the road safety-enhancing furniture was made to world class quality to enhance its durability. “It will last not less than 10 years before getting worn out,” Dogo said directly responding to Mugisha who had earlier on said one factor leading to scarcity of these all-important signages is getting stolen often and getting worn out very fast. Kyambadde explained that as a market leader and a responsible corporate citizen, UAP intends to intensify such community support initiatives to harness its CSR initiatives which Dogo later on disclosed to journalists has for this year 2019 been grown to cover 25% of UAP’s budget. The UAP officials explained that because motor insurance is one area where the entire industry makes up to 30% of the insurance business, UAP found related road safety to be a good area of productive intervention to boost Uganda Police efforts to diminish carnage on our roads. Flanked by Mugisha and other officers, Kyambadde revealed that the Shs98m signage donation is just the start because the plan this year is to engage police in a three-phased approach. Whereas first phase comprised of the exceptionally high quality road signage, phase 2 will include additional road safety furniture and phase 3 will be a partnership with police to engage into community activities such as blood donation drives, fire drills within residential estates and communities near factory areas. The idea, according to Kyambadde, is to raise public safety awareness in public places. Mugisha thanked UAP for prudently coming on board at a time police was suffering acute scarcity of road safety furniture because most of old stock was depleted through thefts by evil-minded members of the public who sell it for scrap or use it for making sauce pans. UAP officials suggested that their furniture should be used to prioritize accident-prone highways connecting to the city. Kyambadde said there was no way UAP, whose profitability in 2018 grew by 15%, can fail to engage in community empowering initiatives. He added that besides Police, URA is another public entity they intend to engage soon because they too are closely involved in regulating vehicles coming onto our roads where they intend to generously devote their CSR spend. He said as industry players, they realize that at just 1% insurance penetration, the Ugandan insurance market is still virgin and the best way to deepen penetration is through engagement in awareness creation activities which he said UAP will be intensifying this year. He said, emboldened by the tremendous success achieved under the “international travel insurance cover” which they unveiled last year, UAP will this year unveil “local travel cover” under a campaign called “Musabaze Sure” that will be devoted to insure inland travelers against personal injuries. “For us at UAP are resolved to ensure that 2019 becomes a year for insurance players to become more relevant in the eyes of the public and we are doing this by investing in awareness creation so that we demystify all the myths people might be having about insurance,” Kyambadde said adding that URA and Uganda Police Force have been identified as UAP’s strategic partners in all motor policy and road safety-related interventions. The CFO also revealed that concerted efforts will be going into increased usage of internet and social media space to market and popularize UAP innovative products. He said they piloted with international travel cover last year and saw the enormous marketing opportunity the social media space offers them. Dogo supplemented him by saying “innovation and strategic partnerships is going to be key in all our plans this year.” Traffic Police’s Bazil Mugisha said the UAP partnership will greatly boost their Fikka Salama operation aimed at strengthening safe travelling on all major high ways leading into the capital Kampala. See more in pictures taken at the Tuesday media event.
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