Churches accuse insurers

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33933, 28 August 1975, Page 19

Churches accuse insurers

The New Zealand Insurance Company and the South Britis.i Insurance Company took a very “benign” view of apartheid, and sympathised with the white section of the South African population, according to a group of representatives from the National Council of Churches. In a paper presented to the council at its annual meeting in Christchurch on Tuesday, the council was told that the strongest criticisms the representatives heard were that there was a great deal of room for improvement in South Africa, but that this

could not come quickly, and that South Africa had its faults. The group was formed after the annual meeting in 1974 where two resolutions w ere passed. The first was to I encourage member churches: to review their stockholdings and business relationships,' such as in insurance policies, and to ask N.C.C. staff to work closely with concerned member churches in approaching the companies about their South African operations. Representatives met the two companies, and asked them how they viewed their role in Couth Africa, and how thev regarded apartheid. They did not ask the companies to withdraw’ from South Africa. The group felt that before it was possible to determine the morality of investment in South Africa, there needed to be considerable knowledge of the nature of apartheid, and its affects on the majority w’ho were without power. The matter was left to be discussed by the executive of the N.C.C.