The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria on Tuesday said it had recovered a total of N600bn from bank debtors.

The Managing Director, AMCON, Mr. Mustafa Chike-Obi, disclosed this on the sidelines of the Bankers’ Committee meeting held in Lagos.

“We are recovering the debts at a faster rate than expected. We have recovered about N100bn so far this year in addition to the N500bn recovered before. Our target is to recover N1tn this year, we still have N2tn outstanding,” he said.

Chike-Obi pointed out that the process of selling the nationalised banks would start this month.

He said, “We are going to put out adverts for advisers, who will advise us on how to sell the nationalised banks. We will let the process be transparent and run its course, but it may take about 12 to 18 months.

“It is a level playing field, everybody (both local and foreign investors) will have a chance to invest, but the CBN will have to approve the investors. There has been a lot of interest already, but we will let everybody have a fair chance.”

AMCON had expressed late last year its preparedness to commence the recovery of N3.14tn bad debts it acquired from banks in 2011.

Also speaking, the CBN Governor, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, said the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, was at the committee’s meeting to brief the apex bank and the Deposit Money Bank chiefs on how “we can use telecom roll out to get access to the rural people and achieve financial inclusion.”

“You can use telephone to improve maternal health care, agriculture and even purchase fertiliser. You can use phones to change the lives of people. We want to also look at how, as a banking community, we can use technology and communication infrastructure to address poverty,” he said.

Addressing journalists after the closed-door meeting, the Managing Director, Access Bank Plc, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, said the cash-less policy was serious and transformational for the economy.

He said, “We didn’t hit our target of 40,000 Point of Sale terminals by the end of last year. We faced some logistic problems and we have factored this into our programme. We intend to address this in the next phase.

“We know that transformation will come with challenges and that is the way to view the cash-less policy. We know it won’t be easy, but when you weigh the benefits and the cost, the benefits outweigh the cost.”

Source: Punch/Ademola Alawiye