Wema Bank sacks over 1,000 staff

Wema Bank Plc on Friday laid off over 1,000 staff on its payroll.

According to an insider source, those affected spreads across the bank’s branches all over the country.

The source further revealed that the bank was found of retrenching staff yearly without following due process.

“While it is true that the retrenchment exercise is carried out yearly by the bank to checkmate the number of unproductive staff to the barest minimum, however, we also have cases of people that are due for a promotion that were unjustly relieved of their jobs,” the source said.

A top official of the bank who spoke under condition of anonymity to our reporters said retrenchment within the bank is an exercise carried out regularly to ‘weed out’ those who are either unproductive or overstayed their welcome in the bank.

“Its not strange. Banks generally retrench staff regularly to check dormancy and bring new bloods on board. I don’t know why it is becoming news now that Wema is doing it. If you are given a target and you don’t meet it, the bank will show you the way out. Its not an industry for lazy people. If you check your facts well without a biased mind, you will see that the affected staff have been queried repeatedly for their lateness to meet up with targets or not meeting it at all. Sometimes it does not even have anything to do with targets but disregard for basic banking and corporate principles. If every other person do not meet up with their targets or are generally lackadaisical to work, how does the bank pay salaries and maintain its long corporate existence?,” he queried.

Asked if the bank followed due process in the retrenchment process, he said: “See the bank is a corporate entity. We follow due process in all we do and won’t embark on anything that can tarnish our image. We couldn’t have laid off people without following the outlined process,” he said.

However, when we reached out to one of the affected staff, she declined to comment on accounts that she was still shocked to believe what was happening.

“Please I can’t say anything for now. I’m not even sure if this is real or fake. It doesn’t make sense to me. The bank can’t just end my years of diligence, professionalism and loyalty like that without prior warning or signal. I think there is a mix up somewhere. When and if I successfully process this and can come to terms with reality, I’ll get back to you, she said sounding teary on phone.

Efforts by newsmen to get comments/reactions from the Head, Brand and Marketing Communications of the bank was unsuccessful as at the time of filing this report.