Bank Crisis: How CBN Directive, CEOs’ Scheming Propel Mass Sack – The Guardian
November 29, 2009 by tim
Federal Government’s directive to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stem the wave of mass sack in banks, a contrary order by the apex bank’s management is brewing trouble in most of the financial institutions.
As the last count, at least 1,000 workers within the rank of banking officers and above in two banks (one cleared as healthy and the other rescued) alone were either sacked or asked to resign in the last two weeks.
This figure excludes the thousands reportedly pencilled down for sack in the other 22 ‘healthy’ and ‘troubled’ banks still grappling with economic crisis.
The Federal Government had reportedly asked the CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, to intervene and put an end to arbitrary retrenchments in most of the banks, especially the eight ÔrescuedÕ ones.
But the apex bank, in an October 28 memo to the Managing Directors of the embattled banks, directed them to, among other things:
“Reduce executive and other staff emoluments by at least 30 per cent and submit an action plan for branch and staff rationalisation (reduction) in order to utilise some hidden economies of scale in the bank’s operations.”
This directive is said to have given impetus to new policies that pencilled down thousands of workers for retrenchment.
Industry sources have, however, expressed concerns that while governments all over the world work hard to encourage employment and are measured by the number of jobs created, the current reforms in the Nigerian banking industry encourage chief executives to sack workers with impunity.
The two workers’ unions in the industry … the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) and the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions’ Employees (NUBIFE) … are worried that their members are made to pay the price of the ongoing reforms in the sector.
