Uche Usim, Abuja
The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) on Sunday alerted Nigerian taxpayers in advance to prepare to shoulder a N5 trillion debt burden in the event it is unable to recover outstanding monies owed by recalcitrant debtors.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, Mr Ahmed Kuru said this in Abuja at the first seminar for AMCON Receivers/Receiver Managers in General Enforcement.
According to him, the implication of such failure would be that the Nigerian public would be made to pay for the insensitivity and recklessness of only a few individuals who have continued to take advantage of the loopholes in the nation’s laws to escape their moral and legal obligations to repay their debts.
The AMCON boss did not foreclose the possibility of recovering the N5 trillion toxic debt in the banking industry, saying it could if it unleashes its full powers against debtors.
The AMCON Chief Executive who was represented at the event by Mr Aliyu Kalgo, AMCON’s Group Head, Resolution Strategy called on all AMCON partners, especially in the receivership business not to allow a few individuals to escape with the commonwealth of all Nigerians.
However, he cautioned that whatever steps AMCON receivers intend to take in the process must however be in strict compliance and within the confines of the law.
Kuru said, “Our Receivers are very key to the success of AMCON. In order to streamline the functions of our Receivers and make them more effective and accountable, we have developed a new Receivership Framework, which will henceforth govern our relationship in terms of management of the assets and accountability.
“We have had course to disengage some of our Receiver Managers due to non-performance. We did that because assets are being abandoned without cause or plan to come out of the debt.
“And at times Receiver Managers are confused about their responsibilities. Therefore, I urge the participants to partake actively in this interactive session and share some of their experiences with one another so that we can all succeed in our collective efforts to recover the over N5trn from these recalcitrant debtor, which is a national assignment.”
Speaking in the same vein, Dr Francis Chuka Agbu SAN, the Senior Partner, Lexavier Partners and Mr Alheri B. Nyako, the Chief Executive Officer of Alheri Legal and Allied Services Consulting and a former Board Secretary/Director Legal at the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation took their turn to amplify the position of the AMCON CEO.
They said there there many possibilities AMCON can leverage to hasten recovery given the enormous powers of receivership as well as winding up and bankruptcy proceedings in its Act, which they described as undisputable and potent tools for debt recovery.
For instance, Agbu who was also represented by Mr Mohammad Sani Umar described receivership as the most effective debt recovery tool within the current insolvency/debt recovery regime.
He challenged AMCON to leverage it to the maximum to help Nigeria especially now that the Federal Government needs a lot of money to bridge Nigeria’s financial challenged that have been heightened by the outbreak of the dreaded coronavirus pandemic.