A cashier at a Lagos branch of Access Bank, who lost his job on Thursday, has shared his ordeal with SaharaReporters.
The bank had announced plans to sack its workers as a result of the negative impact of the Coronavirus outbreak.
Group Managing Director of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, had said that apart from the mass sacking, which would affect about 75 per cent of the bank’s workforce, he would take the lead in having the largest pay cut of 40 per cent.
“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 per cent.
“The rest we would have to cascade right through the institution. Everybody may have to make some adjustments of some sort,” he had said.
SaharaReporters gathered that many of the bank’s staff received their sack letters via email on Thursday with shock and grief.
“My fiancee broke down in tears when she heard the news,” the sacked cashier told SaharaReporters on the phone.
“We are billed to get married next month. Where do I start now? This is unfair.
“The sack letter came in on Thursday but I didn’t know. I was doing my job on Friday when someone asked me if I had been laid off. I said no. She asked me to check my email. Behold, the email. I was shocked.
“I was angry with my boss. She told me she didn’t know anything about it. There was nothing I did wrong. Throughout this period, I have been the one fixing all our ATMs that were not running. I get calls at odd hours to work. My boss told me she could not have singled me out for sack. In my branch, I heard another colleague was sacked.
“By Monday, I will hear more about those who were affected. They are still sending out the mail. I tried to console my wife that something better will come. I have ND, HND and BSc but my salary is N75,000. I am not a core staff. Core staff earn as much as N145,000.
“Normally with my degree, I am not supposed to be getting that low but I just have to accept that so as not to be unemployed. There was no prior notice. There was no warning. It’s not that I was not working diligently. This is unfair.
“This same bank donated millions of naira to fight COVID-19. This same bank gave Singer Naira Marley millions of naira to perform for customers and staff. Naira Marley even tweeted it but we that are working day and night, see what we got now,” he added.
