The Senate has authorized the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON, to go after bank debtors and take over from the other assets other than those used as collateral to recover their debts.
The Senate granted the Commission the power as it considered and passed the report of its Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions on a bill for an Act to modify the Tenor of the Resolution Fund.
The provision however generated a bit of argument in the chambers as some senators kicked against it. Their arguments came a bit too late after the President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan had hit his gavel and moved on to other clauses.
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He had no option to overrule them because it will be against the standing rule of the Senate to revisit a matter once it has been concluded. AMCON was established in 2010 by the Nigerian government with a mandate to within 10 years recover bad loans from debtors.
The government had volunteered to offer bailout in 2009 through the Resolution Cost Fund contributed by the commercial banks and the Central Bank to assist AMCON to manage the debt.
The mandate given to AMCON to recover the debt expired on the 31st of December, 2020 without recovering the debts.
The amendment passed by the Senate on Tuesday modified and extended the tenor of AMCON to enable it to recover all the money. The amendment also gave AMCON the power to access or approach credit tribunals to recover their funds; eliminating the bottlenecks often encountered in normal courts.
The AMCON Amendment bill was sponsored by Senators Sani Uba, of the APC representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District, and Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, APC, Ekiti Central.
(Editor: Abaje Usekwe)
