As the sack gale sweeping through Nigerian bank intensifies, more workers are set to lose their jobs in the ongoing reforms in the country’s banking sector.
Already, more than 2,000 workers have been sacked in just two banks – Intercontinental Bank Plc and Oceanic bank International Plc.
The two banks’ Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and Directors were recently replaced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), after a joint audit found them to have given out loans running into billions of naira without collateral.
About 1,000 workers of Intercontinental bank Plc lost their jobs, while some 1,154 staff of Oceanic bank Plc were also thrown into the labour market.
Financial sources told PANA that the spate of staff rationalisation will soon spread to others banks, notably Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, Spring Bank Plc and Zenith Bank Plc.
Shortly after the new CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, was appointed in July, he embarked on a number of reforms to reposition the banking sector, directing banks to adhere strictly to the full disclosure policy , which makes it compulsory for banks to make their balance sheet available for public scrutiny.
Part of the mandates given to the eight banks whose management were replaced by the CBN was to reposition the banks and ensure the recovery of their loans.
The banks engaged in workers rationalisation claimed they have received CBN’s approval for their action, but spokesman of the apex bank, Muhammed Abdullahi, said no such approval was given.
“The CBN has never directed any Nigerian banks to reduce its staff strength. What we have always advised them to do is to look at their overhead costs. Some of them have huge and frightening overhead costs which affect their finances,” Abdullahi said.
He said rather than sack staffers, banks should adopt more cost saving measures.
“If you look at deployments of Information Communication Technology (ICT), each of them is investing heavily on it. Why can’t they come together to do it. What about the processing of currencies and its transportation, why can’t they pull resources to have a joint outfit that can handle it .What you find out is that each bank has a unit for it. These are very expensive operations,” he said.
Abdullahi described as waste of resources for banks to spend billions of naira of depositors and shareholders money to buy private jets for their CEOs.
No fewer than five out of the 24 banks in Nigeria currently own private jets, seen by many financial analysts as ‘crazy’, considering the huge capital that will be needed to maintain an aircraft which is not being used for commercial purpose .
“The most annoying thing is that some of the banks even have private jets. You know what that means. Salaries of the pilots have to be paid, parking fees and general maintenance. They don’t have to shoulder all that costs.
“Why can’t all the banks share the costs, if they must have a jet. There are so many ways to cut overhead costs, what about looking at the huge allowances been paid to top management. As far as I am concerned, the issue of staff retrenchments is just part of the campaign to malign the entire process of reforms,” the CBN spokesman added.