AMCON Debt: NFIU, ICPC, AMCON Meet, Strategises For 2020

14th January 2020

The Presidential Inter – Agency Committee on the Recovery of AMCON Debt met in Abuja on Tuesday to strategise for the new Financial Year 2020. The meeting, which ended a few minutes ago at the Maitama, Abuja head office of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), was attended by the Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye; the Director/Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Mr Ahmed Kuru.

Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari early in 2019 set up the committee made up of all relevant security, judicial, regulatory and recovery agencies of the Federal Government of Nigeria and charged them to ensure that Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) recovers the over N5trillion debt owed the Corporation by a few recalcitrant obligors in the country.

President Buhari, who last year also signed the 2019 AMCON Amendment Act into law, which gives AMCON overwhelming powers to go after these debtors directed the collaborating agencies to apply speed and the full weight of the Act given the fast approaching sunset date of AMCON. The meeting of Tuesday January 14, 2020 is the first meeting of the committee in the new financial year.

When our correspondent called Head, Corporate Communications of AMCON, Mr Jude Nwauzor to provide further insight into the outcome of the meeting, he said, “It is their (the Inter – Agency Committee) first meeting for the 2020 Financial Year, which was convened by its Chairman, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye to strategise on the fastest and best debt recovery approach(s) in line with the AMCON Act 2019 as amended. I cannot at this time tell you the details of the tactic the committee will apply to resolve each debt because the meeting just ended. But the directive of the Presidency to the committee when it was set up was clear – to ensure the recovery of the over N5trillion outstanding debt owed AMCON by a few Nigerians and in record time too.”