BY JOHNBOSCO AGBAKWURU & JOSEPH ERUNKE

ABUJA—Apparently disturbed over alleged misuse of N5.6 trillion injected into the Asset Management Company of Nigeria, AMCON, by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, the Senate has begun moves aimed at ensuring proper regulation and supervision of the agency.

Already, a bill seeking to amend the existing law of AMCON passed second reading on the floor of the Senate yesterday, after exhaustive deliberation on the matter.

During the debate on the bill tagged: “A Bill for an Act to amend AMCON  Act, 2010,” those who contributed, regretted that the N5.6 trillion which was meant to enable AMCON carry out its statutory functions, was misappropriated by those tasked with responsibility of its management.

They lamented AMCON had failed to live up to its objective of recovering toxic debts owed some commercial banks.

The bill seeks to among others, establish a corporate entity with a well constituted Board of Trustees, BoT, drawn from CBN, eligible financial institutions, National Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC and Ministry of Finance to make regulations for the supervision and management of the agency.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Bassey Otu, PDP, Cross River South, who sponsored the bill, in his lead debate, explained that it also sought to prohibit any board member or an employee of AMCON from being directly or indirectly involved in the purchase of assets acquired by the corporation.

Otu further explained that the bill was aimed at enhancing the work of AMCON to acquire assets that were already subject of litigation if there was no valid court order restraining it from carrying out such function.

Meanwhile, the committee had been mandated to find out the exact amount so far released to AMCON by the CBN; how the corporation made use of it and how much it really recovered.