There is palpable apprehension among the various cadre of staff of First City Monument Bank, FCMB, over the bank’s ongoing gale of retirement, cutting across all operational lines.
Highly dependable New Mail sources within the bank hinted that contrary to the official position that only 150 employees were laid off in the recent exercise, no fewer than 700 staff were actually involved in the exercise that appears to be ravaging the financial services sector of the Nigerian economy.
Though our correspondent gathered that not all the affected 700 staff members have received the letter terminating their employment, sources said the list was compiled late last year, with some of the most productive staff in the Bank included in the list.
Several inside sources hinted that each departmental head was given the number of staff to recommend for termination of their appointments, in a desperate cost-cutting devices by the bank owned by industrialist, Otunba Subomi Balogun and run by his son.
“Even where departmental heads put up spirited defences, they were told that the Bank could no longer cope with the number of staff on the payroll,” one of the source, who spoke under strict anonymity said, stating further that the numbers of staff already sacked notwithstanding, the bank with a staff strength of about 3,000, is indeed, not done with the sack gale yet.
The source said that all departmental heads have been given a matching order to compile names of 300 more persons to be disengaged.
In fact, one departmental head, who has become so frustrated with the constant pestering by the bank management, reportedly included his name on the list of those to be sacked, insisting that since he was sure that none of those presently under his watch deserves no such treatment, he was ready to face the firing line, rather than sacrifice “his hardworking staff.”
A staff in one of the key department of the bank at its corporate head office in Lagos told our correspondent on Tuesday night that the situation of things in FCMB is becoming too “tiring and frustrating.”
“We do not even know what will come next. We are just waiting here not knowing who will be asked to go next.”
However, what appears to be worsening the apprehension within the bank is is the news that as some of the staff are being asked to go, others are being employed.
A staff in the personnel department told our correspondent that “It appears those to replace those who have been asked to go are already lined up.
“We are beginning to see new faces in some of the departments. It is very confusing.”
Our correspondent could not get the officials of the bank to provide explanations to some of the issues before press time.
However, an unnamed official of the bank, quoted by the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, last Friday had admitted that those involved in the current sacking gale, were those that under-performed during the bank’s review of activities of its staff.
The official also admitted that the bank had also employed some new staff to replace some of those sacked, stressing that the development was not peculiar to FCMB, as some other banks had done same recently.
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