Massive Sack In Banking Halls
By Marcel Mbamalu
ANSWERS to the lingering crisis in the nation's banking sector are still far-fetched.
The forceful change of leadership in the embattled five banks and subsequent lowering of the country's rating by the Standard and Poor's have subjected even the healthy banks to intense credit crunch.
The scarcity arose from a lull in inter-bank lending and failure of correspondent banks abroad to honour letters of credit originating from Nigeria.
It was also gathered that despite the intervention of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and other unions in the sector, banks have perfected plans to sack employees considered redundant in their short and medium-term survival strategies.
The banks include a handful of those cleared by the joint audit team of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC).
Some employees, who had been served termination letters in one of the banks, told The Guardian that over 1,000 of them were scheduled to leave the banking halls in the next two months.
But in a swift reaction, a senior staff of the affected bank said it was a product of an evaluation process, which would ensure soft-landing for redundant staff and promotion for up-and-doing ones.
President of the TUC, Comrade Peter Esele, however, blamed the Ministry of Labour and other relevant agencies of government for allegedly keeping silence in the face of arbitrary sacks in banks.
According to him, irrespective of the challenges in the banks, laying off of staff should be preceded with negotiations with relevant unions.
Esele said the Congress had directed its affiliate body, the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance, Finance and other Institutions Employees (ASSBIFIE), to intervene in the case of Wema Bank Plc, even as he noted that First Bank Plc had denied moves to sack about 500 of its employees.
Industry sources say that banks now face even greater operational challenges than they did before the intervention of the CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
According to them, the sector faces more serious crisis of confidence, as the publication, which assumed credible Nigerian businessmen as chronic debtors, has inadvertently criminalised the operations of the banks.
Hence the correspondent banks decline confirmation lines for letters of credit opened by Nigerian banks on behalf of their customers.
Said one of the sources: "A bank is as good as its customers; so, if the businessman for which an LC is opened is deemed to be fraudulent, it means that Nigerian banks had been deceiving the correspondent banks.
"In fact, one of the foreign banks had to query its Nigerian agent for not informing it that one of the troubled banks had problems. But the bank (name withheld) never defaulted in any of its transactions with the foreign bank,"
Reacting to the development, Chief Executive Officer of Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals, Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, blamed the loss of confidence by foreign banks on the CBN forceful change of leadership and publication of the list of debtors by the apex bank.
Ohuabunwa said the CBN governor should have been more discreet in handling the matter.
Another source explained that the former Governor of the apex bank, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, might have observed the problem but, as an economist, chose to handle it more discreetly to avoid "throwing the baby away with the bath water."
Ohuabunwa expressed concern that the lingering loss of confidence could actually create gaps in importation and subsequently lead to high prices, especially for petroleum products.
Importers, who spoke to The Guardian, lamented the development and noted that if not nipped in the bud, the loss of confidence could lead to run-away inflation.
