N5tn debtors don’t want to pay — AMCON – TheNigerialawyer

The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria has established that
the top 20 debtors who owe over 67 per cent of the N5tn debt to
AMCON have the wherewithal to pay but have intentionally refused to
clear their debts.

According to the corporation, the debtors believe that the funds
in their possession are part of their “national cake”.

The firm also said that it was working hard to get court
approvals to take over some of the assets of the defaulters.

The Chairman, AMCON, Muiz Banire, recently revealed that the
corporation’s top 20 debtors owe 67 per cent of the N5tn debt owed
his firm.

Head of Corporate Affairs, AMCON, Jude Nwauzor, told our
correspondent on Friday that the organisation had established that
the major debtors did not want to pay.

He said, “These 20 persons owe almost N4tn. We have several
thousand accounts in our kitty and just like when you do your scale
of preference, when we arrange it, there are top 20, 50, 100, and
it moves on in that order.

“So what the chairman of AMCON talked about was that if we are
able to resolve these 20, we would have done over 60 per cent of
the total obligation, which, of course, is massive.

“We can only imagine what N5tn can do to a country where the
government is borrowing to fund the budget.

“There are individuals in this country who hold on to this money
and it is not that they don’t have the wherewithal to pay, but they
just don’t want to pay because for them, it is national cake. But
this is taxpayers’ money. Some workers have died because of these
people. Some institutions have been crippled because of them. The
economy is also suffering because of them.”

On why the corporation had not fully gone public to announce the
debtors, Nwauzor stated that it was because some of them had cases
with AMCON in court.

He said, “We are not just trying to identify these people; they
are people we know and on several occasions, our chairman had at
one point or the other mentioned their names.

“Most of these obligors are also in court with us, which is why
you can’t just go out to reel out names, especially when you have a
case that is before a court of competent jurisdiction.

“So, it is not that we are trying to shield the names, we know
them but we need to be careful how we mention them, especially when
they are undergoing hearings from the court.”

Nwauzor further explained that AMCON does not just take over an
entity if it had not exhausted all avenues of peaceful
resolution.

He said, “Some of these cases have been on for over five, seven
years, and others since the inception of AMCON in 2010.

“So when you have exhausted all those options and the obligor or
debtor is not bulging, then you seek redress in court and the court
gives us the order to enforce on the asset of the obligor.

“It is through that court order that we’ll take over companies
or to freeze the person’s account or assets. So it is not always
cash; sometimes it comes in the form of cash, while other times it
comes in the form of assets.”

On whether AMCON had received court approvals to go after the
assets or cash of the top 20 defaulters, he replied, “Taking over a
business or asset via the court is a process. It is not something
that happens in one week or one year. But the court has been very
helpful in this recovery effort, especially the Federal High
Court.”

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