From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), yesterday, said it did not force any of its 1000 staff that disengaged recently to quit.
The CBN Governor, Yemi Cardoso, stated this when he appeared before the House of Representatives Ad-hoc panel probing the exit of the 1000 staff and the N50billion severance packaged paid to them.
Cardoso, who was represented by the CBN Deputy Director, Corporate Service, Bala Bello, told the lawmakers that the affected staff were disengaged through Early Exit Programme with payment of full benefits.
He explained that the Early Exit Programme is a means through which “the performance of an organization is optimized by ensuring that round pegs are put in right holes. The manpower requirement of the bank is actually met.” The apex bank boss said the exercise is not peculiar to government agencies alone, as the private sector is also undertaking similar exercises.
According to him, “the manloading, which is the key responsibilities, key performance indicators of the bank, vis-a-vis the number of people driving the performance of that bank, is at a level where it’s optimum, balancing the human resource requirement, the capital requirement, the skill requirement, as well as the IT requirement of the bank.
“You are very much aware that the entire world is going through a process of digitizing its operations. And then once that is done, a lot of opportunities are created, just like a lot of redundancies are also equally created. “And you have had instances in which, in the past, the request for staff to actually exit the bank voluntarily actually emanated on the part of the staff. And I believe Central Bank is not necessarily the first organisation to have done that.
“I’m very happy to mention that the Early Exit Programme of the CBN is 100 per cent voluntary. It’s not mandatory. Nobody has been asked to leave, and nobody has been forced to leave. It’s a completely voluntary programme that has been put in place.”
Cardoso added that “in the past, we had instances in which cases of stagnation and lack of career progression appear. I mean, in an organisation, you’ve got a pyramid where from each level to the next level, the gap keeps narrowing. If not, you are going to have a quasi-organisation, an inverted pyramid.”