Bank of the North may take debtors to crimes commission
From Njadvara Musa, Maiduguri
THERE may no longer be any hiding place for loan defaulters of the Bank of the North (BON) as the firm has concluded plans to take such offenders to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Briefing reporters in Maiduguri on its debt recovery efforts, the bank's Managing Director and Chief Executive, Alhaji Garba Abdulkadir, said the decision to seek EFCC's assistance was due to the failure of other options of recovering the monies.
Abdulkadir said the bank's new position had become necessary as all formal negotiations to recover the debts have failed.
He warned that no debtor would be spared from being prosecuted at the commission.
Already, he said, following the debt recovery drive of the bank, about N6 billion had been repaid out of about N30 billion outstanding debts, which represents only 26.67 per cent of the bank's debt profile.
The list of the debtors, he said, has already been compiled and is ready for presentation before the EFCC. He assured that any debtor or group of debtors that pays before the prosecution deadline will be deleted from the list.
On whether the Northern governors and their states were among those indebted to the bank, he said that none of the governors or their states were indebted to the bank.
He, however, noted that the non-patronage of the bank by the state governments has seriously affected the liquidity and efficiency of the bank.
He added that out of the 19 owner state governments in the north, only six have retained their accounts with the bank.
According to the bank chief, these states are Yobe, Adamawa, Kano, Bauchi, Benue and Jigawa, while the other 13 states have suspended or withdrawn their accounts from the bank. Speaking on the CBN's N25 billion capital base for banks, Abdulkadir said BON targets N35 billion as its minimum capital base.
He added that because of the size and number of branches the bank operates it's minimum capital base should exceed N25 billion, adding that before the CBN's deadline the bank would have made provisions for N35 billion as its capital base.
