Nigeria's 'bad bank' AMCON Hopeful Of Recovering 740 bln naira Through Partner's Firms

Nigeria's 'bad bank' Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) said it is hopeful that its Asset Management Partners (AMPs) would soon recover about 740 billion naira, representing 20 percent of its outstanding debt.

Ahmed Kuru, chief executive of the 'bad bank' said AMCON will provide full support to enable its partner realise the objective of bringing to closure the problem of huge outstanding debt.

AMCON, which was established by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to resolve Non-Performing Loan (NPL) portfolio of banks in the wake of the banking sector crisis in 2009.

The 'bad bank', which acquired the NPL of troubled banks currently outstanding 3.7 billion naira unpaid debt by over six thousand recalcitrant debtors.   
Kuru made the declaration in Lagos at the 2018 edition of the AMCON/AMPs Feedback session, which ended on Tuesday. 

AMCON had engaged some debt recovery firms tagged AMPs in 2016 in a move to complement its recovery efforts as part of its renewed strategy to resolve some 6,000 accounts within its portfolio.

The AMCON boss who was represented at the event by Aliyu Kalgo, the Group Head of Enforcement at AMCON while declaring the 2-day event open said the Corporation is banking on the efforts of the partners to recover the outsourced accounts because their efforts count towards the achievement of AMCON’s core mandate.

He urged them to discharge their assignments within the defined rules of engagement as stipulated by the AMCON Act and as seasoned professionals.
 “It is a well-known fact that AMCON has a unique and limited mandate; therefore, AMCON must maximize every opportunity to state its cases with the highest quality of representation, which was why we came up with the AMP programme ... to recover debts owed the country by a few individuals who have over the years remained recalcitrant. 

"We are very grateful for all the AMPs who work with us towards achieving our recovery mandate. We are mindful of the enormous responsibility placed on your in this regard,” Kuru said.

“We will continue to emphasise the need for more diligence even as we continue to partner with you. In the future, we will enlist AMPs who have made significant recoveries as part of the facilitators for similar events so that they will share some insights and critical success factors with us as well as their colleagues. 

"If the recovery process was easy and straightforward we would not have engaged you in the first instance. We, therefore, recognise the fact that it is a challenging assignment and that is why we selected you. 

"We promise to be with you all through the hardship and together we shall succeed.”