Apex bank says banks must give reasons, notice before sacking staff

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August 15, 2016 2:12 PM

Following the recent decline in the state of the Nigerian economy, there have been several reports of mass retrenchment in various banks across the Nigerian financial sector.

Central Bank Of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele

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According to a Nigeria CommunicationsWeek report, Kolawole Balogun, a representative of the CBN, made this statement while speaking at an interactive meeting in Abuja with Chris Nigige, Minister of Labour and Employment, with other stakeholders in banking and finance sectors.

“We have looked at our laws in terms of our limitations. In as much as we cannot impose staff on any bank, we can engage them on other solutions and that is what we are doing now. We have even gone a step further to look at how we can, not in terms of regulation but in terms of knowing why they are actually disengaging their staff.

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“We will soon come up with a circular for the banks to ensure that if they are going to disengage up to a certain number of staff they should let us know and explain why. Although times are challenging at the moment, they can still manage to keep some level of their staff and remain profitable,” Balogun said at the event, according to the report.

Commenting, Ngige said commercial banks had a responsibility to obey the country's labour laws.

“You must obey all laws of the land, including labour laws, such as the Trade Union Act, T14 law of the federation concerning redundancy and the Trade Dispute Act, which deals with the management of trade disputes including employee-employers’ relationship.

“The ILO takes very seriously the issue of workers maltreatment in various guises, be it in the industries, construction sites or public service. Workers should be treated with dignity and decency,” Ngige said, according to the Nigeria CommunicationsWeek report.

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