The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has recovered N1.6 trillion from debtors in the last 12 years, its Managing Director, Ahmed Kuru said yesterday.
Speaking during a media forum in Lagos, he said the corporation also received N2.3 trillion through remittances by banks into Banking Sector Resolution Cost Fund, otherwise known as Sinking Fund.
The AMCON law requires banks to contribute 0.5 per cent of their assets annually to the Sinking Fund.
Kuru, who disclosed that AMCON funding model will end in 2025, said the corporation deployed asset tracing strategy to track debtors that abandon the companies they borrowed with to start new firms. He said the intention of such obligors was to make debt recovery difficult for the corporation.
He said some debtors stopped picking calls after they learnt that AMCON was winding down.
“It is better you take our calls and get the best advise on how to repay or restructure your debts. It is not going to be bye bye from AMCON,” Kuru advised.
He said that AMCON was created in 2011-2012 to protect N3 trillion depositors funds. He said 350 of the 12,000 debtors owe 84 per cent of the total AMCON debts.
Kuru said the asset tracing strategy helped the corporation to trace, link debtors to obligations to allow easy repayment.
Speaking on Arik, he said the airline owners need to present debt resolution strategy that makes sense to AMCON, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Ministry of Finance.
“The challenge of Arik Air Limited, in Receivership, under the auspices of the AMCON, may seem difficult, but the situation is not irredeemable. There is always a way out of every resolution situation however, there must be a situation of give and take, which is what we-AMCON, have been trying to achieve.
“We are ready to sit down with the owner or owners of Arik if they are ready to agree on what makes sense to us, to them, and the Federal Government,” Kuru said.
Kuru said that when AMCON engages and arrives at that agreement, we will as AMCON go back to the CBN as well as the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and share such resolution strategy with them.
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“If you recall, in the past, we resolved issues that are more difficult and more complicated than the Arik issue in the banks, oil and gas, manufacturing sector, real estate and investment, automobile, telecommunications, just to mention a few. But for any resolution to take place, the two parties or the parties involved must have understanding. We are convinced that there is always a way out.”
Speaking on Arik, Aero, and the proposed NG Eagle, Kuru, said that lately especially since the coming of a new government led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there has been heightened campaign by some recalcitrant AMCON debtors especially from its aviation portfolio seeking to evoke the emotion of the public to perceive AMCON and its recovery activities from negative angle.
“But those pushing that negative campaign forgot that Arik at the time had a about 50 per cent passenger load before AMCON took over in 2017 under a receivership arrangement. However, because the government of the day was interested in saving the airline because of its strategic role in Nigeria’s aviation sector, felt strongly that the airline must be saved from imminent collapse and national embarrassment,” he said.
Kuru said the corporation under his watch remains a resolution agency that have supported businesses and would continue to support businesses because it is in the overall interest of the Nigerian economy.
He said, “AMCON is a resolution agency of the government, and we look forward to any obligor or debtor that wants to come discuss with us with repayment plans. Our doors are always open to resolve debts because that is our primary function.
“Aside from our recovery mandate, AMCON does not have a secret agenda. Transparency for us is very key. But, we also know that misinformation is part of the game, which is what some of our obligors specialise in but we want the media to know that we are very ready to provide accurate information. We deal with people who have interests and have issues with the organization. It is nothing personal,” he said.
Kuru described debt recovery as difficult assignment. “We deal with people that are in distress, and people that are desperately not ready to engage. When some of them (the obligors) heard the news of the proposed AMCON sunset, they stopped picking our calls. So, in their mind, they believe AMCON would soon close shop, which would mean that the government would write-off the debt,” he said.
He said the process of winding AMCON down will be a process, and nobody, no government would allow any debtor walk away. It is not possible,” Kuru affirmed adding that government can set up a task force to continue to recover debts.
Kuru added: “AMCON is conscious of the fact that it is dealing with obligors who are doing legitimate business but have taken loans they could not services that resulted in bad debts that the banks could not recover, which AMCON eventually bought over, and was mandated by the government backed by the AMCON Act as amended to recover. As such AMCON tries as much as possible not put the issues involving obligors on the pages of newspapers. But the obligor at every opportunity tries to send half-truths to the public to make AMCON look bad”.
