COVID-19 Distress: Access Bank To Lay Off 75% Of Staff, Says MD Herbert Wigwe
Herbert
Wigwe, the group managing director of Access Bank, has mulled the
bank’s planned mass retrenchment of its workforce over what he said was
the outcome of the COVID-19 lockdown.
The bank boss who spoke via
video conferencing in a town hall meeting with the bank’s staff said
those to be affected by the mass retrenchment are 75% of the bank’s
staff, most of whom are outsourced and are offering “non-essential
services.”
“We
probably don’t need as many securitymen 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 etcetera, etcetera,” Mr. Wigwe
said in a video obtained by The Trent on Thursday, April 30, 2020.
“The
second has to do with our professional cost. Now that is one that is
very tricky and it is tricky because I do understand and appreciate that
its gonna, you know, bring its own pain to staff. We basically have to
make the adjustments the same way you sounded when we spoke 10 days ago
with respect to basically cutting down cost.
“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.”
Mr. Herbert Wigwe, one of the principal conveners of
CA-COVID, a coalition of Nigeria’s private sector against COVID-19 said
the proposed measures are aimed at keeping the bank afloat in the face
of the economic realities of COVID-19.
CA-COVID which is led by
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is credited to have raised about
N30 billion, feeding up to 1.7 million Nigerian, ordered 400,000
coronavirus test kits, and building isolation centres worth over N500
million isolation.
Access Bank has been giving its involvement
with the COVID-19 intervention a strong PR push, sending out regular
emails to news platforms, including The Trent. The running thread of
the press statements from the bank’s publicist is that Mr. Wigwe is
leading the coalition.
Industry watchers believe that Mr. Wigwe’s
retrenchment policy affects the most vulnerable of his staffers and
will be counter-productive for many families especially the poor if the
books of the bank truly show just as his philanthropy does, that it has
the capacity to cushion the effect at such a precarious moment in
history.
Nigeria’s Access Bank to Cut Staff Salaries to Avoid Job Losses - Bloomberg
Access
Bank Plc plans to cut salaries to avoid job losses as a lockdown to
contain the coronavirus hampers the operations of Nigeria’s biggest
lender, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The
reductions are expected to start from May unless business conditions
improve, said the people, who were briefed on the matter during a
conference call and asked not to be identified because they’re not
authorized to speak publicly. Some management will get as much as a 40%
decrease, they said.
A spokesman for Lagos-based Access Bank declined to comment.
Nigerian
banks are facing the threat of rising bad-debt levels as a crash in oil
prices and the risk of a naira devaluation coincide with the Covid-19
pandemic that has shuttered businesses.
Access Bank, which
acquired rival Diamond Bank Plc last year, had 6,898 permanent staff at
the end of 2019, according to a presentation on its website. The
acquisition partly contributed to a 31% increase in operating expenses.
Personnel, recruitment and training costs account for more than a third
of overheads after the deal boosted employee numbers and resulted in
“wage harmonization” across the businesses.
