EFCC recovers ₦171 billion from bank debtors

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday said that it had recovered over ₦171 billion from debtors of banks whose chief executives were sacked recently by the Central Bank of Nigeria for mismanagement.

The spokesperson of the EFCC, Femi Babafemi, who described the recovery effort as having yielded ‘good results’, said that the agency is still making efforts to recover more money from the debtors, whose loan portfolio amounts to more than 700 billion naira.

According to Mr. Babafemi, the funds were recovered from debtors of seven of the eight banks which the country’s central bank said had been on the verge of collapse were it not for its recent intervention.

The banks include: Bank PHB, Afribank, Union Bank, Intercontinental Bank, Oceanic, Spring Bank and Finbank.

A breakdown of the total amount shows that ₦33.3billion was recovered for Afribank, ₦30.4billion for Union Bank, ₦59.2billion for Intercontinental Bank, ₦35.4billion for Oceanic Bank, ₦571million for Spring Bank, ₦10.7billion for Finbank and ₦1.2billion for Bank PHB.

He also said the commission’s chairperson, Farida Waziri, met with sectional heads yesterday, to ascertain the level of achievement and to urge them to be more committed.

“That the commission has gone this far is an impetus to do more, not only in the banks but other areas” he said. “You may also wish to remember that the chairman of the EFCC met with sectional heads this morning to review the level of successes so far achieved and to urge them to get more committed. What this means is that we are likely to see more drastic actions in the coming weeks,” Mr. Babafemi said.

The Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi had in August dismissed the chief executives of some banks and charged them with fraud and doling out loans without collateral in one of the worst banking scandals to hit the sector since a 2006 clean-up exercise saw 89 banks consolidate into 24. The bank had announced a total of ₦600 billion naira bailout for the banks in “grave situation”.

The central bank had initially put the total loan portfolio of the ailing banks at ₦2.8 trillion but EFCC spokesperson said reconciliation had shown that the figure was just over ₦700 billion as some of the figures declared by the banks had turned out not to be loans.