Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The judiciary is the latest ally that the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) has looked up to in order to recover the debt of over N5 trillion owed by companies and individuals in the country.
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AMCON, Mr Ahmed Kuru, at the 2019 Annual Seminar for Justices of the Court of Appeal, said he would appreciate the assistance of the third arm of government to recover the debts.
With the terminal date for the debt approaching, Mr Kuru, who spoke at the event on The amended AMCON Act 2019: A detailed review, said the support of the judiciary to resolve the debt obligation before the date would be important, calling on the support of the courts to resolve all the pending cases currently before them.
According to the AMCON boss, if the over N5.4 trillion debt owed to the corporation remained unrecovered, it would eventually become the burden of the federal government and by extension Nigerian taxpayers.
“The amendment (of the AMCON Act) was done to recover the loans people took from banks.
“If AMCON is not able to recover the debt, it becomes the debt of the government and when this happens, it is the taxpayers that will bear this burden of people who were reckless. This should not be allowed to happen.
“We urge you to designate some of the courts for AMCON cases. We urge you to assist in granting accelerated hearing for AMCON cases,” Mr Kuru said.
He further said the challenges faced by the asset management agency in its debt recovery drive had required the AMCON to put in place several structures which included working with the National Assembly to amend the Act.
President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, in her address at the event, said the concern raised by AMCON was becoming worrisome in view of the fact that debtors deployed technicalities to frustrate the corporation.
She said given the challenges faced by AMCON in its debt recovery efforts, the corporation could not operate effectively without the sustained support of the courts.
AMCON had earlier instituted an inter-agency committee to speedily resolve the challenges in recovering over N5 trillion Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) debts
But this had not yielded any result from the committee made up of members which include heads and representatives of agencies such as AMCON, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), the ICPC, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), and the Federal Ministry of Justice.
Although Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has recovered about N1.22 trillion of the bad debt, above N5 trillion was still outstanding. The agency said its reputation has for long been blemished by the impression that, while recoveries are made from those without political clout, well-connected people known to be big debtors walk the streets freely.
