Senators, Businessmen, politicians make list of chronic bank debtors

Nigerian Deposit Money Banks on Monday continued with the policy of naming and shaming their delinquent debtors with further publication of the names of firms and their directors whose loans have become non-performing for more than 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 of Nigeria Limited, Access Bank Plc, Diamond Bank Plc and Unity Bank Plc.

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.

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.

[Punch]