While our nation’s circus show of shame went on in Abuja and Jeddah last week, another issue of relevance was playing out in the banking industry. And this was the aftermath of Central Bank governor Lamido Sanusi’s reforms of the banking sector.
Sanusi’s hurricane might have swept through the banking sector, mowing down banks’ chief executives and directors, however, the real casualties are beginning to show, and they are the over 8,000 men and women bearing the brunt of the reforms through job loss. Oceanic Bank, Bank PHB Plc, UBA Plc, First Bank, GTB are laying off workers in response to the fall out from the reforms.
It is, on the surface, easy ascribe the retrenchments in the banks on the Sanusi tsunami that took off in the middle of 2009, but the sacking of chief executives and directors was not the immediate cause. Long before the Sanusi putsch many senior bankers made quick money from brisk business in the confines of their offices and lived flamboyant lives comparable to those of celebrities of the entertainment world. Soon, it became clear that despite being a private-sector driven industry the principal actors in the banking business had abandoned all pretence at corporate governance and fiscal accountability, toying with depositors’ money by giving out questionable loans, managing a bloated workforce, doctoring their books to impress the public, and opening unserviceable branches. The result was an over-staffed industry, incurring huge salary bills every month, operational liabilities and losses in excess of N100 billion.
In the light of all this, it is not inappropriate to view rationalisation of staff as an expected consequence, if banks are to rightly address this anomaly.
The sacked workers are not employees of CBN in the first place and to disabuse the minds of critics that it did not order the retrenchments, the CBN issued a release stating, “... the Central Bank of Nigeria has never directed commercial banks to sack staff or rationalise branches as reported. Banks are private enterprises and the decision to engage or disengage staff is best left to the managements and boards of the institutions. These decisions are taken on the basis of business imperatives”.
Nonetheless, our sympathy goes to the affected workers, many of whom are young people either just beginning to live life on their own or raising a family.
Given the state of the nation’s economy, losing a well paying job in the bank is a predicament that many people will not take lightly. It is frustrating and depressing.
What is being experienced in the industry now should serve as a lesson for future operations, and a pointer to the need for vigilance in monitoring and regulating the banking sector, to guard against the ugly practices that have become the norm in the industry. Chief amongst these are the questionable employment conditions of service for staff, characterised by the practice of ‘casualisation’ of workers and the abuse of female bank staff. Reports are rife to the effect that many banks, rather than properly recruit workers, resort to a cost-saving ad hoc arrangement of periodic hiring and dismissal. This is a practice that devalues the profession and contributes to the lowering of ethical standards of practice. In the same vein, female bank workers are faced with employment conditions that compromise their future plans.
Oftentimes, their brief includes unrealistic targets that open them to unethical and immoral practices that compromise their dignity. We view these developments as part of the general corruption that compromised the banking sector where the rot started from the top.
We urge the managements of our banks to exhaustively explore all avenues to ensure that the rationalisation is reduced to a barest minimum. One way to do this would be for the banks to reduce staff salaries, especially at senior levels. Some unjustifiable allowances of management staff would very easily pay the wages of significant numbers of persons further down the corporate ladder.
Advertising, branding and sponsorship budgets, which ballooned irresponsibly during the consolidation era, as banks struggled to rebrand and reposition themselves within and beyond the country, should be curtailed, and the savings therefrom used to save jobs.
We cannot afford to send such a huge number of educated and experienced persons into the job market. Before now, the virtual collapse of entire industries, like textiles and tyre manufacturing, rendered thousands of people jobless. We have to take every step possible to ensure that the banking industry does not complicate an already serious unemployment crisis. The cost of doing this will be nothing compared to the price we will have to pay for the alternative: flooding our streets with jobless professionals who are as desperate as they are savvy.
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