A financial expert told
OluFamous.Com
that most of these people are not really to blame but high interest
rates charged by the banks, plus the facts that the Federal Government
too is owing most of them.
Nigerian Deposit Money Banks has continued with the policy of revealing
delinquent debtors with publication of names of firms and directors
whose loans have become non-performing for over one year.
While nine banks published the names of the loans defaulters on Monday,
four banks released the lists of their chronic debtors, owing a total of
N143.81bn, on Tuesday.
The four banks are First Bank, Access Bank, Diamond Bank and Unity Bank.
The banks, which had published the list of their delinquent debtors on
Monday were Zenith Bank Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Union Bank Plc,
Sterling Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, Stanbic IBTC Bank,
Heritage Bank Limited and Enterprise Bank Limited.
First Bank, which has its total amount of non-performing loans as N43.72bn, published 92 names of delinquent debtors.
The first five companies on the lender’s list owe a combined sum of
N23bn. These are Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited, Starcomm Plc; BGL
Securities Limited, where a former Minister of Finance and National
Planning, Kalu Idika Kalu, is a director; Shield Petroleum Limited and
Fargo Petroleum and Gas Limited.
Shield Petroleum, the number one on the list, owes N6.883bn; while
Zurich International Service, the last on the list, owes N26.69m.
Unity Bank also released 260 names of delinquent debtors with a combined NPL figure of N45.52bn.
The list has the companies of some prominent Nigerians. These include
Umar Mutallab’s DeanShanger Project Limited, N3.6bn; Senator Ayodele
Arise and a former Minister of State for Works, Mr. Dayo Adeyeye’s
International Payment Devices Limited, N81.9m; and Prince Adeyanju
Olateru-Olagbegi’s Cupid Investment BDC, N90.1m.
According to PUNCH, other prominent companies on the list are Ekiti Kete
Mass Transit, which owes N991m; Fargo Petroleum and Gas Limited,
N2.5bn; Ava Cement Limited, N.8bn; and Plywood Chemical and Accessories,
N1.1bn.
Ava Cement topped Unity Bank’s debtors’ list with N9.8bn, while Malcolm Akpokodje owes the least with N20m.
Access Bank Plc published a list of 11 delinquent debtors, with a combined NPL figure of approximately N3.4bn.
Top on the list are Bioka Ventures Limited, which owes N1.15bn, while
Derukas International Limited was last on the list with a debt of
N56.3m.
Diamond Bank Plc has N47.17bn as its total NPLs, with companies belonging to prominent Nigerians owing sizeable amounts.
These include Sir Emeka Offor’s Global ScanSystem Limited, which the
bank says owes N181m; a former Chairman, House of Representatives
Committee on the Diaspora, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa’s Thriller Eneavours,
which owes N122m; and a former Delta State Commissioner for Sports
Solomon Ogba’s Delta Mega Trend Limited, which owes N89m.
Aside the 13 banks which have published their debtor lists, other banks
which will publish theirs this week are Ecobank Nigeria, First City
Monument Bank Limited, Standard Chartered Bank, Keystone Bank Limited,
United Bank for Africa Plc and Wema Bank Plc.
Investigations by our correspondents on Monday revealed that most of the
banks had cut their list of delinquent debtors due to litigation with
their customers over disputes arising from loan terms and last-minute
renegotiations by some clients.
A top bank executive, who spoke to one of our correspondents under the
condition of anonymity, said, “Some of the banks have to remove the list
of some clients due to issues that border on litigation.
“Some names were removed at the last minute after the affected customers
came to renegotiate with us. Some banks have had to cut the names on
their debtors’ list by at least 50 per cent.”
Officials of banks, who spoke to our correspondents, linked the
relatively high figure of the NPLs in some banks to inside connivance
with customers, lingering margin loans and huge oil and gas-related
loans.
According to them, customer relationship managers in some of the banks
connived with the customers to obtain huge loans that eventually became
bad.
They also said that long-standing margin loans in some banks were responsible for the high figure.
“A huge chunk of the loans are oil and gas related. The drop in oil
prices has also worsened the situation for some oil and gas companies.
They borrowed relatively large amounts of money, which later became bad
loans,” an official of a tier-1 bank told our correspondent.
Meanwhile, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria will publish the
list of its debtors early next week if they fail to regularise the terms
of their loans with the agency.
The spokesperson for AMCON, Mr. Kayode Lambo, who confirmed this on
Monday, said companies which failed to regularise the terms of their
loans with the agency would have their names published.
“As many companies who have not been servicing their loans will have their names published,” he added.
The names of firms belonging to prominent Nigerians who have not been servicing their loans may appear on the list.
In 2009, the Federal Government spent about N5tn to buy the NPLs from banks to save them from imminent collapse.
AMCON, the government agency created after the 2009 banking crisis, was
the special purpose vehicle used to acquire the NPLs from the banking
sector.
The Central Bank of Nigeria had on April 22, 2015 directed the banks,
discount houses and AMCON to publish the list of delinquent debtors from
August 1.
They are to publish the names in at least three national newspapers on a quarterly basis.
In line with the directive, the banks gave the chronic debtors a three-month grace period, which expired on July 31.
The Director, Banking Supervision, CBN, Mrs. ‘Tokunbo Martins, had in a
circular dated April 22, 2015, said, “In order to ensure that the
industry NPL ratio does not exceed the prudential limit of five per cent
and to improve the credit culture in the banking industry, banks and
discount houses are directed to observe prudent credit underwriting and
monitoring standards.”
The debtors are those whose accounts have been classified as lost and
include persons, entities, directors, subsidiaries and other related
parties, according to the central bank.
The central bank had stated that delinquent debtors in the category
described above would be blacklisted and “banned from participating in
the Nigerian foreign exchange market and in the Nigerian government
securities market.”
Already, Abike Dabiri has reacted, saying she is not owing anyone. I guess other reactions will follow.