Gambia orders Access Bank, GTBank and other banks to replace non-Gambian staff with locals by December

• The Central Bank of The Gambia has ordered commercial banks to replace affected non-Gambian staff with qualified Gambians by December 31.

• Access Bank, GTBank, FirstBank, Ecobank and Zenith Bank are among the lenders affected by the directive.

• The order has triggered debate online about local employment, African labour mobility and ECOWAS rules.

The Central Bank of The Gambia (CBG) has directed all commercial banks operating in the country to replace non-Gambian staff with qualified Gambian nationals, in a circular that has drawn commentary online.

The directive, dated 16 September and signed by Second Deputy Governor Dr Paul J. Mendy, follows a meeting between the regulator and bank managing directors on 27 August, along with an industry-wide study into foreign staffing in the sector. The affected lenders include subsidiaries of Nigerian banks Access Bank, GTBank, FirstBank, Ecobank and Zenith Bank.

According to the CBG, the study found a relatively high number of non-Gambians employed beyond those formally recognised as expatriate staff, a practice it says breaches the Labour Act 2023 and Guideline 9 on expatriate employment. 

Banks have been told to adopt a phased approach to replacing affected staff, with arrangements for skills transfer and continuity of operations, ahead of a 31 December 2026 deadline. Employers who fail to comply with the Act's expatriate staffing provisions face a fine of at least 500,000 dalasi on conviction.

The circular has sparked discussion on social media, with some framing it as a straightforward local-content policy and others questioning the consistency of the reasoning behind it. 

In a post on X, commentator Alpha Bah argued that policies restricting African migrants would be labelled xenophobic if enacted by Western governments, and questioned why the same standard doesn't apply when an African state applies it to fellow Africans. He tied the directive to broader debates around Pan-Africanism and free movement within the region.

The Gambia is a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), whose protocol guarantees citizens of member states the right of entry, residence and establishment across the bloc, a framework often cited in discussions about labour mobility between member countries.

The CBG has not issued a public response to the online reaction. The five banks listed in the circular, as of publication, also not issued a public response. 

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