Editorial
The intervention of the Bankers Committee was as swift as its directive was unequivocal given the potential domino effects on other players in the sector: “The committee particularly deliberated on the issue of the operating costs of banks in view of the disruptions emanating from the global economic difficulties and decided that in order to help minimise and mitigate the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on families and livelihoods, no bank in Nigeria shall retrench or lay off any staff of any cadre (including full-time and part-time).
”To give effect to the above measure, the express approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria shall be required in the event that it becomes absolutely necessary to lay off any such staff. CBN solicits the support of all in our collective effort to weather through the economic challenges occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic”.
The above, which was the outcome of the special meeting of the Bankers Committee held on May 2, was triggered by the leak of a private meeting between the Group Managing Director of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, and the bank’s employees, ostensibly to review the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the bank’s operations. The video of the teleconference which had somehow emerged on the social media had Wigwe stating among others that: “We probably don’t need as many security men as required, even to the fact that we are not gonna have all our branches open between now and December…We don’t need all the tea girls. We don’t need all the cleaners. We don’t need all the tellers, etc.”
He put the percentage of the jobs to be erased at 75 percent, most of whom were outsourced and offering non-essential services. He also spoke of an across the board pay cuts starting with him: “I will be the first to take the hit and I’m gonna take the largest pay cut, which would be as much as 40 percent. The rest we would have to cascade right through the institution. Everybody may have to make some adjustments of some sort.”.
We commend the Bankers Committee for rising to the occasion at a difficult time to halt what could have spiralled into a domino across the industry. If we shudder to imagine the fate of the thousands of bank employees that would have otherwise been thrown into the labour market already bursting its seams, and this at a most difficult time, just as intriguing is what has now become a culture of treating some categories of workers as expendables – to be shown the door at the first signs of trouble.
We understand that disruptions, such as we have seen of COVID-19 are sometimes inevitable. And that the natural instinct of the capitalist is to opt for the line of least resistance. Being entities answerable to their shareholders for whom they must deliver profit, the tendency is to gut personnel costs with attendant consequences in staff rationalisation. However, much as it is perfectly understood that the banks are not under obligation to retain any personnel perceived to be surplus to their needs, it seems to us the expression of capitalism of the crudest kind that a bank which declared a profit after tax of N40. 9 billion in the first quarter just ended March 31, would so soon after, be contemplating a massive lay-off of personnel – the same personnel that delivered the profit – using COVID-19 as an excuse. That cannot be right. Certainly not at this time when all hands should be on deck to ensure that jobs are not needlessly lost. The bankers’ body is therefore right to have intervened the way it did.
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