Julius Berger, Dantata, others fault CBN on debtors’ list

In from Ali Smart …

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has come under fire over the publication of delinquent bank debtors.

President of Federation of Construction Industry (FOCI) Mr. Solomon Ogunbusola, said his members are totally averse to the disclosure of the debtors list because it portrayed them in bad light.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja, Ogunbusola said the inability of his members to pay back bank loans was due to governments’ indebtedness to them.

Ogunbusola had lamented that his members had spent the loans they obtained from banks on projects such as roads and building construction with the hope that governments would pay them as at when due, but the governments had failed to fulfill their own part of the bargain.

Members of FOCI are made up of big construction companies, including Julius Berger Plc, C&C Construction, Costain West Africa, Hitech, Brunelli Construction, Jagal Nigeria, G. Cappa Plc, PW Nigeria Limited, Dantata and Sawoe and RCC, among others.

According to Ogunbusola, the Federal Ministry of Works alone presently owes its members over N500 billion, while one of the firms is being owed N70 billion by the Federal Government.

The FOCI President urged the CBN to equally publish names of government ministries, departments and agencies indebted to FOCI members if it must implement the threat.

“We are indebted to banks and CBN is threatening our members, saying that it will publish their names as chronic debtors. How can you explain it that someone borrowed money from the bank for two to three years and government refuses to pay for the contract done with the money? What will CBN do to government that refuses to pay the contractor? The names of such governments must be published too”, he said.

The FOCI boss raised the alarm that construction companies in Nigeria are currently working below 30 per cent capacity, as many contractors were handicapped due to lack of payment for jobs already executed.

Curiously, shareholders’ groups are also on the same page with the construction firms.

The National Chairman, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (PSAN), Mr. Boniface Okezie had earlier argued that non-performing loans (NPL) in Nigerian banks have adverse effects on shareholders and urged the CBN to go the extra mile in publishing the names of the loan defaulters .

Read also: Naming and shaming of bank debtors begins

Okezie noted that shareholders always suffer and bear the brunt of the chronic debtors in the banking industry because it affects their returns on investment.

According to him, “if the names of the chronic debtors are published today heaven will not fall because they are the people wreaking havoc on banks. The fact is that names should be made known so that they could run to pay. They shouldn’t stop them from doing business with those banks.”

The list published on Monday by some banks, contained the names of some politically influential individuals and retired senior military personnel thus corroborating the fears of the bankers that some of these individuals with strong “connections” might want to take their pound of flesh from the banks that published their names.

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