The Senate committee on banking, insurance and other Financial institutions has raised an alarm that some highly-placed individuals in the country are thwarting the effort of The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) to recover N4.4trillion cornered by some individuals. According to Senator Uba Sani, the Committee Chairman, who made this known today during a meeting on “Consolidating the effectiveness of the asset recovery model adopted by AMCON” at Zuma Rock Resort, Niger State.
Senator Sani said, “From the N4.4 trillion we are trying to recover, about 350 people in this country are responsible. This is about 83 per cent of the debt.
The Senator added, “This is very worrisome. This means that powerful Nigerians are the ones not willing to pay these loans. They have been employing different strategies and tactics to stall the repayment of loans running into trillions of Naira.
The Chairman Committee revealed that those highly placed individuals are responsible for borrowing up to 83% of bank loans in Nigeria and are not supporting AMCON to refund this money.
He laments, saying that “But unfortunately, from what is happening, AMCON is finding it very difficult because those people are highly placed Nigerians, they try to frustrate AMCON’s effort through the judiciary and that is what we are looking.”
However, the lawmaker promised that the Nigerian Senate will do everything within its power to ensure that those who took these monies are made to return them.
Ahmed Kuru, the AMCON Managing Director disclosed that the recent amendment to AMCON Act will help the agency to make some recoveries.
Kuru disclosed that so far, the agency was able to recover about N1.4trillion worth of property and N665 billion cash; property forfeiture, N278 billion; disposed assets N141billion; share forfeiture, N139 billion including other strategic assets amounting to N207 billion.
However, he blamed the court for issuing conflicting orders as a clog in the wheel of their progress.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Mr Bello Hassan, said the federal government was determined to sanitize the financial system in the country.
Hassan said this was demonstrated through the provision of financial safety net to the financial system, and these will provide safety and stability in the market for steady development.
He revealed that the NDIC has already taken measures to ensure safety at the commercial banks which has boosted depositors confidence in line with the mandate.
The NDIC boss concluded that “The Corporation had commenced supervisory measures for digital banks as well as the enhancement of existing consumer protection measures, especially as regards digital deposit, through enhanced collaboration with other safety-net players.”
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