NDIC faults Okereke-Onyuike on call to merge NDIC with AMCON

By ABDUL OLALEKAN

The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has faulted the call by the former Director-General, Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Prof (Mrs)  Ndidi Okereke-Onyuike, to merge the corporation with Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), noting that the remarks was a glaring indication that the Ex-DG of NSE clearly lacked adequate understanding of the roles of NDIC in the Nigerian financial system.

Okereke-Onyuike was said to have advised the Federal Government to merge the two agencies at a book launch in Lagos last Thursday.

In a statement made available to Business247 News Online on Monday, NDIC stated that its responsibility is entirely different from that of AMCON, and that it does not enjoy any government subventions as claimed by the former DG of NSE.

It stated that the commission, which was established in 1988 and commenced operations in 1989 to administer Deposit Insurance System (DIS) in Nigeria, has been in existence for the past 27 years to protect depositors, particularly small savers by providing an orderly means of reimbursement in the event of failure of an insured banking institution.

The core mandates of NDIC, according to the corporation, includes; Deposit Guarantee, Bank Supervision, Failure Resolution and Bank Liquidation.

The corporation, it added, also conducts supervision of the insured licensed banks in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to ascertain their financial conditions for the purpose of safeguarding depositors and contributing to financial system stability in the country.

The failure resolution mandate of the corporation, it pointed out,  allows it to extend technical and financial assistance to eligible banks, assist in Purchase and Assumption (P&A) transactions, Deposit Transfer, Merger and Acquisition (M&A), Bridge Bank as done in 2011 in collaboration with the CBN to prevent monumental banking crisis in Nigeria and outright liquidation of failed institutions.

“It is also worth mentioning that through the bridge bank initiative, over three (3) million depositors and 6,600 jobs were saved. It is also on record that the Corporation in collaboration with the CBN in 2009 midwifed the establishment of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON),” it noted

AMCON, it stated, was purposely set up to purchase toxic assets from the banking institutions and engage in debt recovery of such non-performing loans, adding that the mandate of AMCON is quite different from that of the NDIC.

“It should be noted that contrary to Mrs. Okereke-Onyuike’s assertion, the NDIC does not enjoy any government subventions. Its income is derived from investment of insurance premium paid by the insured banks.  In fact, the Corporation has been remitting billions of Naira of its annual operating surpluses to the Federal Government as required by the Fiscal Responsibility Act,” it stressed.