AMCON says asset management partners to help recover N740bn

Ahmed Lawan Kuru, managing director/chief executive of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), has again pledged the full support of AMCON to its asset management partners (AMPs) in the pursuit to recover the 20 per cent or N740 billion of the total Eligible Bank Assets (EBAs) of AMCON portfolio of N3.7 trillion that are out there in the hands of debtors.

He made this known at the 2018 edition of the AMCON/AMPs Feedback session, which ended recently. AMPs are firms AMCON engaged in 2016 to complement its recovery efforts as part of its renewed strategy to resolve some 6,000 accounts within its portfolio of accounts.

The AMCON boss who was represented at the event by Aliyu Kalgo, the Group Head of Enforcements at AMCON while declaring the 2-day event open said the Corporation placed equal importance on the ability of the partners to recover the outsourced accounts because their efforts count towards the achievement of AMCON’s core mandate, just as he urged the APMs to discharge their assignments within the defined rules of engagement as stipulated by the AMCON Act and as seasoned professionals.

Kuru said, “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 that have been of tremendous development in our efforts 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,” he assured.

On the plans of AMCON to ensure that AMPs experience a hitch-free recovery processes, Kuru, who argued that these debt when recovered would go a long way to boosting the economy of Nigeria added, “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 straight forward 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.”

Also addressing the participants,  Chuka Agbu SAN urged the AMPs to explore and apply the special powers as provided by the AMCON Act in their pursuit of these recalcitrant debtors of the corporation. The legal luminary further advised the AMPs to leverage the major provisions of the AMCON Act such as bankruptcy, receivership, asset tracing amongst othersin their quest to track down the obligors and eventually compel them to repay their obligations.