Momentum calls for faster vaccine roll-out

MOMENTUM Metropolitan Holdings yesterday called on the government to speed up the vaccination programme of South Africans to curb a possible third wave of infections in the country.

South Africa has vaccinated more than 80 000 of its citizens through the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, mostly health-care workers, as of Wednesday.

Chief executive Hillie Meyer said the country needed to act with speed and vaccinate more of the its citizens as the third wave outbreak remained a big concern for both the country and the economy.

“We must look beyond the four vaccinations that we are currently looking at. There are about 10 vaccinations that are currently available throughout the globe and there are other 10 potential vaccinations that we can look at. We need to be more ambitious and the time we take to vaccinate is too long. We must do it quickly because the third and fourth waves remain a threat,” Meyer said.

This after South Africa’s largest insurance-based financial services group said it had increased its Covid-19 provision by an additional R655 million, net of tax, by the end of December.

“The additional provision was in addition to a provision of R983m net of tax that we set aside in the previous financial year. This Covid-19 provision relates to potential increased mortality claims, increases in terminations, reduced return-to-work experience on disability income claims in payment, and business interruption claims,” the group said.

The group has felt the second wave impact of the Covid-19 outbreak during the period as it reported a 43 percent decline in normalised headline earnings to R1.01 billion. However, it said this is a significant recovery from the loss of R251m that was reported for the second half of the 2020 financial year. The group’s new business volumes increased by 14 percent to R30bn and value of new business more than doubled to R334m. Its normalised headline earnings per share fell by 43 percent to 67.6 cents a share and the group declared a cash dividend of 25c an ordinary share.

Meyer said Momentum was pleased by its excellent operating performance.

“If we exclude the additional Covid-19 provision of R655m net of tax as well as the adverse mortality due to the pandemic, operating profit would have been 31 percent higher year-on-year. Our normalised headline earnings would have been in line with that of the previous period,” he said. Momentum Corporate was the only division that reported a loss, which rose by more than 100 percent to a loss of R212m from a profit of R308m a year earlier.

Meyer said the group remained cautious about the secondary impact of the pandemic on the economy, as disposable income would remain under pressure, which in turn could dampen new business flows or increase contract terminations.

Momentum shares closed 0.93 percent higher at R17.35 on the JSE yesterday.