AMCON blames conflicting court orders, slow process for low recovery of N5trn debt

The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has blamed conflicting orders of the court and slow judicial process for the low recovery of over N5 trillion owed the Federal Government by obligors.

So far, AMCON has only been able to recover about N1.4 trillion of the total debt sum.

AMCON Managing Director/CEO, Mr Ahmed Kuru, disclosed this at the weekend during this year’s edition of the House of Representatives Committee on Banking, and Currency retreat with the Management of AMCON and other stakeholders, at the Lagos Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The retreat was held under the theme: ‘Asset Recovery as a tool for Enhanced growth, and Stability of the Banking sectors sustaining the Impact and Bridging the challenges of AMCON.’

Kuru detailed the recoveries as comprising of N681bn cash; Property Forfeiture, N279bn; Share Forfeiture, N140bn; and other strategic assets N208bn.

Similarly, a total of over N116.9bn has been recovered on Polaris’ Eligible Bank Assets (EBAs) from date of acquisition to date.

The AMCON boss, who was represented by the Group Head, Asset Management Directorate, Mr Matthew Coker, told the lawmakers that despite the ‘special powers’ as provided by the Act, AMCON still struggles with the implementation due to the state of Nigeria’s judicial system.

He said: “Honourable members, the Corporation’s recovery processes at this point majorly depends on the Judiciary, i.e., Obtaining Possessory Orders or Orders for sale. The slow pace of our court processes and sometimes conflicting orders by the Courts, especially at the Federal High Court (FHC), which is our Court of first instance frustrates recovery process. There are delays in obtaining dates in the Court to hear AMCON matters.

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“Deposit of judgement sum as provided for in the act is not enforced by the Courts, some of the obligors are still active contractors of the government. They carry out businesses with government with debtor company names or other pseudo names and the BOFIA Act that provided for a Special Tribunal on recovery and enforcements would have hastened the adjudication of our matters in Court if the Judiciary had constituted a task force specifically in that regard.”

The House Committee Chairman on Banking and Currency, Hon. Victor Nwokolo, announced at the retreat that the National Assembly would summon the leadership of the various key committees overseeing the different agencies of the federal government, to investigate why the Inter-agency Committee on the recovery of the huge outstanding debt owed AMCON is not working as directed by the Presidency.

Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, had in September 2019, inaugurated an Inter-agency Committee to speedily resolve the challenges in recovering over N5 trillion AMCON debts. He had tasked members to deploy their expertise in the assignment to ensure that AMCON met its mandate within reasonable timeline.

Members of the committee include heads and representatives of agencies such as the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).

Others are heads of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), the Federal Ministry of Justice and AMCON.

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According to AMCON’s spokesman, Jude Nwauzor, the committee, chaired by Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, ICPC chairman, was expected to review the status of the huge debts owed to AMCON, deliberate on practical, legal and other strategies for the recovery of the outstanding debts.

Nwokolo said it was sad that agencies of the Federal Government were working at cross-purposes rather than collaborating to ensure that they support the government.

“We cannot continue like this because we are answerable to the people of Nigeria and our constituencies as lawmakers. They will hold us accountable if we fail to take decisive actions that would help AMCON to recover these huge outstanding debts,” he said.

The lawmaker insisted that it did not sound right that the Vice President had to set up a committee to force sister agencies of government to collaborate and mount pressure on AMCON obligors within the ambit of the law to ensure that these debts are resolved.

He said in a sane clime, ministries, departments and agencies of the government naturally work in sync to ensure that nobody short-changes the government, “but from reports we get from AMCON, it is obvious that they are facing frustrations from not just the obligors but from the judiciary, as well as ministries, departments and agencies of the federal government. There is no reason why that should happen in a decent country”.

For that reason, Nwokolo said the National Assembly would in no distant time organize another retreat which would involve about six critical stakeholders to discuss in great details the strategy that would be adopted to ensure that Nigeria recovers its money.