Central Bank of Nigeria has said that commercial banks would be made to give prior notice and reasons to the apex bank before they sack their staff, if they continue to sack its staff up to a significant number.
The position of the government is a followup to earlier directive to banks to suspend any further sackings the banking sector.
Most banks have shaved off a chunk off their staff as the economic downturn continue to impac their operations, with many of declaring very poor results last in 2015 reporting year.
Kolawole Balogun, a representative of the CBN, said this while speaking at an interactive meeting in Abuja with Chris Ngige, minister of labour and employment, and other stakeholders in banking and finance sectors.
According to him, t the banks should be able to make profit with a reasonable amount of staff.
The government wants to see minimal layoffs by the sector even as banks struggle to sustain operations in the face of dwindling activities.
Balogun said, “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.
“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”.
On his part, Ngige, minister of labour and employment, said the commercial banks must obey the country’s labour laws.
His words: “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.”
