DG AMCON, Ahmed Kuru

Strong indications emerged that Federal Government may rethink the creation and continued retention of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria AMCON, as the lack of expertise in its debt recovery operation has led to the liquidation of several Nigerian companies and loss of over 70, 000 jobs across sectors in the last 11 years of its existence.

An oil rig, which provides over 300 jobs onshore and offshore, which has been seized and tied at the Marina water front for over eight years by AMCON.

Established under the AMCON 2010 (as amended) as part of measures to stabilise the banking industry by purchasing the non-performing loans NPL and subsequently recover the purchased bad loans, the corporation has through its ‘military’ and adversarial approach to loan recovery has caused Nigeria’s economy more harm than it was created to address by shutting down companies and worsening unemployment.

Available statistics show that there is hardly any sector of the economy that has not tested the bitter pills of the corporation’s illicit and archaic approach towards debt recovery. They range from financial sector (banks and insurance inclusive) to aviation, shipping and maritime, oil and gas, manufacturing and even Small and Medium Scale Enterprises SMEs, among several others.

A financial expert, who spoke in an interview questioned why the corporation, which was statutorily created to operate for a specified period of 10 years should be allowed to continue wreak havoc on the nation’s economy by destroying erstwhile thriving companies and worsening unemployment rates in the country.

The expert, who spoke with our Correspondent on the condition of anonymity, observed that public debt recovery all over the world is a delicate exercise and should be treated as such so that it does not lead to shutdown of organisations and the attendant loss of jobs, which hurts the economy more.

He noted that though there may be some recalcitrant debtors, especially among some individuals and politicians, the idea of lumping all the organisations together and hounding them down was counterproductive and runs contrary to the core reasons why the corporation was set up in the first place.

“I can count some oranisations across aviation, maritime and shipping, manufacturing and even among the hospitality industry, which were doing very well, servicing the loans but were badly affected by the global economic meltdown and were forced to shut down through AMCON’s aggressive method of debt recovery.

“The approach to debt recovery in civilised societies is for the debt recovery agency not to stifle the operations of the debtor-organisations so as they remain in operation, gradually service and pay back the loans while retaining their workforce, which has a long term benefit for the country and a win-win situation for all not hounding them out of existence as AMCON is doing currently.

“Of what benefit is it to the Federal Government to lose over 70, 000 jobs while trying to recover the loans because as soon as the companies shut down, you cannot be talking of recovering any loan again and this is not good enough for any economy because unemployment is one of the biggest causes of insecurity in Nigeria today”, he lamented.

Investigations showed that the corporation has currently confiscated over 30 vessels in the last eight years or thereabout, a development that is worsened by the fact that it lacks the technical know-how to manage a vessel. Many of these vessels, which litter the Marina waterfronts and Takwabay Beach area of Lagos now constitute a major threat to safe navigation on the nation’s waterways.