Herbert Wigwe, the group managing director of Access Bank, has said the 75 per cent workers laid off were not their staff but contract workers consists of tea men and tea ladies, cleaners, technicians, security amongst others.
The managing director, in a statement explained that service contractors supply their staff to service the bank.
Hebert said Access Bank would engage the bank’s service contractors to rationalize the service level to what the bank requires, going forward.
He said service contractor personnel account for about 75% of those seen at Access Bank – tea men and tea ladies, cleaners, technicians, security (like Halogen, etc).
Earlier, it was reported that the bank laid off 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.
