A coalition of civil society groups in the country has
vowed to use all legal means necessary to fight
Diamond Bank over its recent sacking of 400
workers.
vowed to use all legal means necessary to fight
Diamond Bank over its recent sacking of 400
workers.
The coalition, in an email sent to our correspondent
on Friday by its spokesperson and National
Coordinator, Citizens Rights and Leadership
Awareness Initiative, Mr. Peter Nwokolo, accused
the bank of not following due process as required
by extant labour laws and international best
practices in the disengagement of the workers.
The group had in a statement released earlier in the
week accused the bank of falsehood, describing its
explanation that the workers were sacked because
of their non performance as a lie.
It said investigation showed that “most of the
sacked workers had indeed obtained appraisal
scores in excess of the recommended score of 50
per cent and above, going by the bank’s last
performance index concluded in February 2016.”
Nwokolo, in his response to an email from Saturday
PUNCH, said the bank was yet to respond to a
letter sent to it by the group on July 11, which was
addressed to its Managing Director/Chief Executive
Officer.
He, however, vowed that should the group not hear
from the bank on time, it “will take every measure
within the ambit of the law to ensure that the rule of
law prevails and that the sacked workers get their
deserved pay off as required by relevant labour
laws.”
“It is our considered view that Diamond Bank as a
responsible corporate entity understands that they
cannot afford to treat such a serious issue that
concerns the welfare and well being of Nigerians
under its employment with levity and so we expect
that our demands should receive prompt and
appropriate response,” he added in his email.
In its earlier statement, the group had called on
Diamond Bank to immediately “engage the sacked
workers in negotiations with a view to reaching an
agreement on the terms of settlement, so that the
affected staff can move on with their careers, which
has been damaged by the negative reports of their
sacking, which the bank had deliberately and
erroneously presented as a result of lack of
productivity.”
The statement had further asked the bank to retract
its statements which it said “were aimed at
circumventing the rules in order to bypass deserved
and unavoidable payoff,” adding that some of the
workers who had put in more than a decade in the
service of the bank lamented the negative effect the
bank’s statements have had on their careers.
It also called on the bank to address “the blatant
and unilateral deductions of already agreed long
term loan tenures from the bank account of the
affected workers.”
However, when our correspondent contacted the
bank management, it denied sacking 400 workers.
A response in an email from the bank’s Team Lead,
Media Relations, Corporate Communications, Mr.
Ikechuckwu Omeife, said “only 200 staff whose
performance scorecards were adjudged to be lower
than the minimum required to drive its strategic
growth plan for the business year were relieved” of
their jobs.
The bank described the downsizing of its workforce
as “rightsizing” and as a core strategic exercise in
line with the bank’s growth objective and the will to
optimise cost and enhance value for the
shareholders at the end of the business year.”
“The yearly appraisal is a general industry standard
and enables banks to prune their workforce and
prudently allocate resources for optimum result,” it
added.
The Federal Government had earlier directed banks
in the country to halt the all ongoing retrenchment
of workers in the banking and telecommunications
sector and even threatened to withdraw the
operating licence of any bank or company in breach
of the directive.
