Not less than N644 billion has so far been recovered from debtors by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).
Chief Executive Officer of the agency, Ahmed Kuru, disclosed in a press briefing in Lagos that AMCON would continue to engage debtors to pay up their debts.
Kuru said 80 per cent of the bad loans it acquired from banks were beyond redemption, rubbishing claims that the corporation was out to wreck some businesses operating in the country.
“Financial institutions have primary responsibilities to give out loans, and more than 65 per cent of banks’ incomes are from interest and loans. All these facilities they have transferred to AMCON, 80 per cent of them are already inside the coffin. The only thing that supports them is the supporting assets,” he said,
Furthermore, the AMCON boss said, “We looked at those businesses with us that are not dead, but are in intensive care system.
“More than 80 per cent of the firms we acquired are in the caskets. We are more of a resolution company, with the power to sell the assets of the companies to recover our money. Some of them we injected funds into, but some of them have passed the stage of redemption.”
Kuru remarked that AMCON’s intervention in the country actually prevented the collapse of so many businesses, adding that the corporation is going about the mandate for which it was created by the federal government in 2010 to manage the huge Non Performing Loans (NPLs) in the banking sector. He said AMCON had not in any way abdicated that assignment to ‘run businesses’ as perceived by some people.
He explained that AMCON does not have the power to seal businesses, unless it gets the order from courts, adding that some of the properties in the possession of AMCON are not easily sold because of cash crunch in the economy.
“We want debtors to come and talk to us on how they want to pay. We do not gain anything by embarrassing anybody,” he said.
Modupe Gbadeyanka