Following the directive
from the federal government that every federal government ministry,
parastatal and agencies should begin remitting its earnings into a Treasury Single Account (TSA), it has
a twist effect on the Nigerian banking industry.
Obviously Since the announcement,
commercial banks in the country have reportedly started sacking some of their
staffers as they can no longer afford to keep them.
This is because of the massive withdrawals
of funds by the agencies from their existing accounts in compliance with the federal
government’s directive.
According to anonymous source who is a top
management staff of one of the first generation banks, his bank laid off one
thousand staff nationwide adding that the mostly affected in the downsizing
exercise are desk officers.
The source told Leadership that the closure
of government accounts with commercial banks has left the banks with no other
option than to reduce its work force.
It would be recalled that the banking
sector is the highest employer of Labour in Nigeria.
The source opined that the TSA policy is
capable of grounding a lot of commercial banks even though it is designed to
ensure accountability and transparency.
“As I speak with you now, about one
thousand of our staff are already on their way out, because we can no longer
accommodate them, but what we have done is to lay off more of the desk
officers,” he said.
Speaking on why the desk officers were
mostly affected, the source said: If
you lay off those who go out to look for deposits you will worsen the
situation, so we have to look at the survival of the bank first, the
consequence of allowing desk officers to stay and sacking those who bring
deposits will be higher, so we took the safer option of letting desk officers
go”.
“The truth of the matter is that some
of these deposits, especially fixed deposits help the banks a lot, now, there
is directive that government funds be withdrawn, on one hand it will ensure
accountability, but on the other hand the banks will also have to reduce their
staff strength or be ready to recapitalize.
Another source said another new generation
bank laid off 1,500 staff yesterday for the same reason. Although he added that
those affected were those on temporary appointments.
“The problem is that, if you lay off
permanent staff at once, you also have to pay them all their entitlements
otherwise they will take you to court. Yes, majority of the people we truly do
not need are unfortunately the permanent staff, but because of the confusion
and litigation that will follow, we decided to relief those with temporary
appointments. It is a painful decision, but we have to do it in other to save
the banks.
“We have prepared their disengagement
letters and most of them will be communicated next week. I tell you, not only
here; all the banks will follow this line. That is the situation,” he said.
A staff of another new generation bank who
was a victim of the sacking spree said:”I got my letter of disengagement on
Thursday, I was devastated, but at the same time I knew it will get to this
point, because most of the commercial banks in Nigeria have very fat accounts
of government agencies and ministries that runs into billions of naira.
“Some of these funds are not withdrawn
for six months or even more and banks trade with them and make profits. So once
you shut that angle of business certainly the banks will bleed, so if, other
people did not expect sacks, then they must be day dreaming”.
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