ACCESS BANK CHAIRMAN DICLOSE PLANS TO RETRENCH WORKERS DUE TO THE CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC

Herbert Wigwe, The Group Managing Director Of Access Bank, has mulled the bank’s planned mass retrenchment of its workforce over what he said was the outcome of the COVID-19 lockdown.

The Bank Boss spoke via video conferencing in a town hall meeting with the bank’s staff said those to be affected by the mass retrenchment are 75% of the bank’s staff, most of whom are outsourced and are offering non-essential services.

Mr Wigwe was quoted saying, “We 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,”.

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 going to 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 going to 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 who is 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.

CA-COVID is led by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote. This sector credited To Have raised About N30 billion, feeding up to 1.7 million Nigerian, Ordered 400,000 Coronavirus test kits, and building isolation centres Worth Over N500 Million Isolation.