By Ginika Okoye
Some debt recovery agents of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) say secrecy and connivance by some defunct banks’ officials are hampering debt recovery processes of failed banks.
Some of the agents spoke at the NDIC Sensitisation Seminar for the Corporation’s Debt Recovery Agents in Abuja on Thursday.
Mr Augustine Ukauzo, an NDIC agent with Consecrated Law Firm, said the failure of some defunct bank officials to do due diligence in granting loans was making recovery difficult for the agents.
Ukauzo said that some defunct bank officials approved loans based on partnerships, relationships or familiarity hence, no documented evidences on how to trace and recover the loans.
According to him, most defunct bank officials also issue loans based on familiarity without the company owning a commiserate collateral to match the loan.
He said that poor record keeping also hampered their work.
”Bank officials can connive and give a loan of N100 million to someone (company) for a business without the person or company owning a commiserate asset of that N100 million.
”There are also some scenarios where bank officials will give loans without a concrete documentation on how to locate the debtor.
”If the bank officials do what they are supposed to do, banks will not fail,” he said.
He said that the seminar would help them to know some of the new areas and new improvements in the NDIC Act of 2023.
Another agent, Dr Abdullahi Tahir, called on banks and regulatory bodies to include Bank Verification Number (BVN) as a requirement for loan issuance.
Tahir said that the move would help the NDIC in prompt and effective debt recovery.
”What these debtors usually do is that they have lots of companies, and in law, a company is different from the person.
”If my company takes a loan, if they are going after that loan, they are going after my company and not me as a person.
”They now extend it to have several companies such that once they take a loan with a company, and that company is compromised, they just move on to the next one,” he said.
He said that the introduction of BVN would tie a person to his company.
“If you go to a bank to open an account, even for a corporate account, you have to drop your BVN and that BVN is linked to your corporate account.
”Once your BVN is on company A, it will definitely be in company Z.
“If you are able to use the BVN to tie him down, even if company ABC takes a loan, you can freeze company XYZ and that will put pressure on the company to pay his debts,” he said.
Tahir said that the idea would be a stop-gap measure as issues of human rights could also be considered.
Another agent, Moses Agbolono, urged the CBN and NDIC to hold managers of banks in liquidation accountable in the event of its failure.
Olufemi Kushimo, the Director, Legal Department of NDIC, said the seminar was to sensitise, inform, educate the debt recovery agents on the powers of the NDIC Act 2023.
Olufemi said that the Act was a full recovery tool to enhance the corporation’s debt recovery mechanism to fulfil its mandate of deposit guarantee and payment of uninsured portion of failed banks’ depositors.
He said that the seminar would help to
enhance and improve better synergy between the corporation and the agents for effective debt recovery.
Also speaking, Mrs Patricia Okosun, the Director, Asset Management Department of the NDIC, said that litigations hampered the work of agents of the corporation.
Okosun said that the seminar would help the agents to know the powers that had been given to them through the NDIC Act of 2023.
”For instance, we talk about foreclosing an asset.
”If we have collateral, even when he runs to the courts, we still have some powers that we can foreclose those collaterals especially the ones that have legal mortgage on them,” she said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the seminar is with the theme, “Operationalising the Provisions of NDIC Act 2023 for Effective Debt Recovery”.
It was organised for NDIC Debt Recovery Agents in the Northern part of the country. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Kadiri Abdulrahman
