The Federal Government has been challenged to expand the laws that granted the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) special debt recovery powers in the AMCON Act as amended into a national law that would insulate the banking sector against reckless borrowers and recalcitrant debtors that AMCON is currently chasing for the recovery of trillions of Naira.
The Federal Government debt recovery agency, which has since inception in 2010 recovered over N1.4trillion, had at different phases from the year of its establishment purchased 12,743 NPLs or Eligible Bank Assets (EBAs) worth N3.8 trillion from 22 Eligible Financial Institutions (EFIs) for a purchase price of N1.8 trillion. Since then, AMCON has worked tirelessly to recover the huge debt, which were covered by various collaterals. But as the years roll by, AMCON obligors have become more daring, and hiding under all manners of legal technicalities to delay the agency from recovery.
Speaking at the training of Solicitors, Receivers and Receiver/Managers in Lagos, at the weekend, Mr Oluwakemi Balogun, of the firm of Oluwakemi LP, said debt recovery in Nigeria wouldcontinue to burden AMCON as well as the financial sector as long as the system allows some Nigerians to brazenly walk into banks to borrow money with no intention to repay the loan obligation.
Having watched such financial rascality for some decades, the Senior Advocate opined that something drastic should be done by the government to save the country. According to him, some Nigerians in the last 25 years have perfected the act of going to different banks to borrow money and have serially defaulted in the repayment agreement because the country has no policy that guides such recklessness.
As a mitigant to such ugly development, the legal luminary added: “We need to have a national law that will assist lenders (banks and financial institutions).”