Access Bank Plans Retrenchment Of Staff

The Group Managing Director of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe says that the bank is considering a mass retrenchment of 75% of its staff due to the impact of COVID-19.

Wigwe said this in a video of a conference call in a town hall meeting with the bank’s staff, which leaked on social media on Thursday.

He said in the video, “We probably don’t need as many security men 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 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.

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“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 is one of the principal conveners of CA-COVID which is led by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.

CA-COVID was said to have raised about N30 billion, fed up to 1.7 million Nigerians, ordered 400,000 coronavirus test kits, and built isolation centres worth over N500 million.