AMCON CEO: Our asset partners on course to recover N740bn

Ahmed Kuru, the managing director/CEO of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), has pledged the corporation’s full support to its Asset Management Partners (AMPs).

This he did in the pursuit to recover the 20 percent or N740billion of the total eligible bank assets (EBAs) of AMCON portfolio of N3.7 trillion in the hands of obligors.

He made the declaration in Lagos at the 2018 edition of the AMCON/AMPs feedback session, which ended on Tuesday.

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.

Kuru, who was represented by Aliyu Kalgo, the group head of enforcement at AMCON, said the corporation placed equal importance on the ability of the partners to recover the outsourced accounts.

“It is a well-known fact that AMCON has a unique and limited mandate,” Kuru said.

“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.”

On AMCON’s plans to ensure that AMPs experience a hitch-free recoprocess, Kuru said the recovery of these debt when recovered would go a long way to boosting the Nigerian economy.

“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 others in their quest to track down the obligors and eventually compel them to repay their obligations.

Other people who made presentations at the programme from the different directorate of the corporation include Benedict Daminabo, Usman Abubakar, Kayode Alawonde, Kunle Olalekan, Ibironke Ifederu, Ahmadu Abbas, Aaron Agada, Suleiman Ibrahim, Richard Olonishuwa, Bridget Akika, and Andrew Eyo.