Reps probe casualisation in banks, others

Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

The House of Representatives, yesterday, resolved to probe the casualisation of staff in the banking and other sectors of the economy.

Consequently, the House mandated its committees on Banking and Currency and Labour, Productivity and Employment to undertake the investigation and report back to it for further legislative actions. The probe is sequel to the adoption of a motion by Amobi Akintola, on the “need for commercial banks to stop casualisation of staff.”

Akintola , in his motion, argued that  prior to the emergence of new generation banks in the country, banks staff were usually full time workers, who are entitled to series of benefits,  including promotions, health packages, productivity, life insurance policies among others.

However, the lawmaker noted that in recent times, casualisation of staff has become the norm in the banking sector, not minding that the sector remains one of the most viable in the economy.

According to him, “despite the huge profits being made by commercial banks, they still casualise most of their core operational staff, as (90) percent of bank workers are casual staff, a development that is an act of exploitation of the unemployed youths.

Also  concerned that core operations of banks like tellering, customer service, relationship management, marketing, business development, internal controls among others are being handled by contract staff who are not entitled to promotion, health care services, utility allowances,  and productivity bonuses, thus making them to be virtual slaves within the banking sector. Only six months ago, Ecobank laid off over a thousand casual staff.

“Cognizant that the practice of casualisation of staff is causing a rise in fraud rate perpetrated by staff and also psychological trauma among those set of staff to the extent that a contract staff committed suicide in 2010 when he was retrenched by WEMA Bank without any compensation and in another incidence few days ago, during a robbery attack in Ekiti State on Thursday November 21, 2019, the Police explained how a_CCTV footage exposed a bank staff involved in the robbery operation.

“If the casual staff handling core operations of banks are converted to permanent staff, better service would be derived by customers and the rate of fraud in the banking industry will reduce.”