Abuja-The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, has made a debt recovery of N22.79 billion in 2010, as against the N20.77 billion it recovered in 2009, Alhaji Umaru Ibrahim, its Managing Director, has said.

Ibrahim disclosed this in the 2010 Annual Report and Statement of Account of the NDIC, a copy of which was made available to newsmen in Abuja.

He said: “The total cumulative recovery made by the NDIC in 2010 was N22.79 billion, as against N20.77 billion in 2009, representing an increase of over N2billion or about 9.7 per cent.”

He said that in 2010, the corporation embarked on a number of aggressive debt recovery activities to facilitate and enhance liquidation dividends being paid to depositors.

Ibrahim said that the corporation used debt recovery agents and relevant law enforcement agencies, as well as the Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) to achieve the debt recovery.

“The NDIC has commenced discussions with AMCON to use its platform to dispose some of the risks assets of ‘banks-in-liquidation’.

“The NDIC has completed the segregation of all accounts, with outstanding balances of N100 million and above, and 174 accounts will be off-loaded to AMCON as soon as it takes off,” he added.

On the closed micro-finance banks (MFBs), Ibrahim said that NDIC had compiled all the necessary information on 76, out of 104 closed banks.

He said that the payment of their insured deposits commenced on December 6, 2010.

He said as at December 31, 2010, NDIC had paid over N559.2 million to 18, 520 depositors of the affected micro-finance banks.

Ibrahim said: “It is noteworthy that the payment was effected with minimum delay from the date of closure.

“The NDIC had since intensified efforts at obtaining the required information from the rest 27 MFBs, so that payment to affected depositors could commence in January 2011.”

He said that as at December 31, 2010, the corporation had also paid a total of N7.597 billion to insured depositors of the banks-in-liquidation.