‘Urge for deposit mobilization has killed professionalism in banking sector’
Daily Trust: Some financial institutions are still laying-off employees despite recent directive by the government to halt. What’s your take on the development?
Oyinkan Olasanoye: We keep advising our members on the need to allow the union to be more active in decisions and to be properly briefed on the matter. Under no reason should the management lay off employees anyhow. The labour law and the collective agreement are very clear about it. The labour law specified that where you need to lay somebody off, the union representing its members in that sector should be called for meeting and negotiation. The law didn’t say you can’t lay people off, but there are ways of doing it.
We’ve been appealing to our members not to wait until they are laid off. The moment they hear the rumour about that, they should write their management to that effect and let us know in order to be properly briefed about who to discuss with.
We will keep appealing to our members, employers and management of organisations that the recession we are going through is one that requires all hands to be on deck. Our sector is a very sensitive one and with the economic meltdown, we can’t afford to have issues that will affect the general public’s trust on the sector.
DT: There are concerns over undue pressure by banks on female bankers to mobilize deposit. What will ASSBIFI do to stop this practice? Olasanoye: We kicked against the practice earlier; people didn’t understand and now it is boomeranging. The banks have always set targets. Initially, bankers rose through performance appraisal that was not only target based. One’s appraisal then was based on punctuality, number of time loss, education and contribution to the organization. But when we started selling our national assets to people who had no reasons to own them, the cowboys came on board and changed the system of promotion, which is now based on deposit volume.
However, the banks are not enjoying it because people move the deposits from one bank to another to negotiate position. The way banks in Nigeria declare profit is wonderful. We have written severally to the Central Bank that these billions after tax should be plunged back into the system. Before now, there was a condition that a percentage of your profit should go to education fund, Industrial Training Fund and so on. Are these people declaring billions after tax doing that?
DT: Nigeria’s unfriendly investment environment is partly blamed on some of the policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). What’s your take on this?
Olasanoye: The core issue we have in the country’s financial sector now is policy summersault. CBN and Ministry of Finance keep rolling out policies which effects are not considered. The policies government should roll out ought to be people and economic friendly.