603 debtors owe 9 banks N398bn

In compliance with  the directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, that all names of delinquent debtors be made public, through at least three national dailies, nine banks have published the names of their debtors which indicated that 603 of them owe a total of N398,188, 385, 279.
The banks that published the names of their debtors include: Zenith Bank, Skye Bank, Sterling Bank, Enterprise Bank and Stanbic IBTC Bank.
Others include: Guarantee Trust Bank, Heritage Bank, Fidelity Bank and Union Bank Plc.
The breakdown of the debt showed that Union Bank is being owed by 176 debtors to the tune of N341,980,337,799.66.

Union Bank's five top debtors
Its list showed their top five debtors to include: Doc Oil and Gas Limited – N16 billion, Alliance Energy Limited – N5 billion, Hajaig Construction – N3 billion, Sapta International Industries Limited, N2 billion and Petroleum Project International Limited, N1.2 billion.
The list of Skye Bank showed that 107 customers remain indebted to them to the tune of N12,995, 388,072.
Its top five debtors include: Enikkom Investment Services – N1.8 billion, Production Integrated Services – N1.6 billion, Tim Afrique Services – N999 million, National Truck Manufacturers – N728 million and Appaye Engineering Company Limited – N524 million.
Elvation Nigeria Limited, Goshen Integrated Supplies Limited and Duncan Investment Limited also owe Skye Bank $687,319, $437,115 and 471, 028 Euros respectively.
A total of 61 debtors owe Sterling Bank to the tune of N3, 572,243,633.48.
Its debtor list showed the top five debtors to include: Kasolute Nigeria Limited – N475 million, Just Jays Limited – N254 million, Alcun Industries Limited – N192 million, G-Cyrus Global Resources Limited – N188 million and N. Fadlallah & Co. Limited – N133 million.

Heritage Bank's list
Another bank which also published its list includes Heritage Bank which showed seven customers indebted to the lender to the tune of N1.1 billion.
Its top five debtors include: GIC Oil & Services Limited – N675 million, Global Trade & Investment Limited – N274 million, Bertco Motors (Nigeria) Limited – N73 million, Reprotrain Nigeria Limited – N69 million and Feetaf Enterprises – N18 million.
Fidelity Bank has 28 delinquent debtors who owe a total of N5.6 billion. Its top debtors included Starcomms who owe a total of N2.2 billion, followed by Kesio Associates – N328 million and Diesel Solutions Limited – N324 million.
Zenith Bank has 37 debtors owing a total sum of N5, 196, 021, 721. 89. Top on the list of its book include: Energy Company Nigeria Limited – N743 million, Olugbenga Onigbogi – N503 million, Prime Marketing Associate Limited – N472 million, EKHA Agro Processing – N356 million and Southfield Petroleum Limited- N324 million.
Forty-six debtors owe Stanbic IBTC N7,876,585,682.69. Its top five defaulters include: Afro-Arab Investment Limited – N766 million, Sandabe Int’l Company Limited – N679 million, Edward Benson Int’l Limited – N646 million, Gambal Nigeria Limited – N535 million and Oluwaseun Ogunbambo – N472 million.
A total of N4,016,559,259.80 remains in the pockets of Guarantee Trust Bank’s thirty-nine debtors. Its major debtors include: Ekiti Tutors CMS – N303 million, Silversprint Oil & Gas Limited – N258 million, National Union of Local Government Employees, Jaba, Kaduna State – N206 million, MED & Health Workers Union of Nigeria, FMC, Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State – N199 million and Call Fix it Limited – N185 million.
Enterprise Bank’s 102 debtors owe a whooping N15.8 billion. Its major debtors include: Naturelle Extracts Limited – N1 billion, Gic Oil & Gas Services limited – N1 billion, NADABO Energy Limited – N1 billion, Vistar Services Limited – N1 billion and Isoglass Industries Limited – N895 million.

Recall that the apex bank in a circular dated April 22, 2015 and titled: 'Letter to all banks and discount houses on recovery of delinquent credit facilities’ had directed all banks and issuing houses to observe prudent credit underwriting and monitoring standards.
The apex bank had said the directive was as a result of its observation of the rising trend of non-performing loans in the industry, noting that such pragmatic steps needed to be taken to ensure that “the industry’s non-performing loan ratio does not exceed the prudential limit of 5 per cent, and to improve the credit culture in the banking industry.”

The circular
According to the circular, “banks and discount houses are required with effect from May 1, 2015 to give the delinquent debtors three months of grace to turn their accounts from non-performing to performing status; publish the list of delinquent debtors that remain non-performing in at least three national daily newspapers quarterly (The delinquent debtors are those whose accounts have been classified lost and include the persons, entities, directors, subsidiaries and other related parties);
“the list must be sent to the CBN as soon as the publication is made; banks and discount houses are also to note that delinquent debtors in the category described above will be blacklisted by the CBN and are therefore banned from participating in the Nigerian foreign exchange market and from participating in the Nigeria government securities market.”