Employment Minister to hold crunch meeting with BoG, labour unions over job loses

Employment and Labour Relations Minister, Ignatius Baffuor Awuah has indicated strongly his outfit's plan to engage the Central Bank, Consolidated Bank of Ghana (CBG) and Labour Unions to discuss issues regarding huge job loses that has hit the banking space.

Ignatius Baffuor Awuah observed that the situation demands that urgent steps be taken to ensure that those who are being laid off are properly catered for, whereas those who are to stay are taken through the right processes to forestall future occurrences.

The Minister said the situation is worrying despite the fact that the actions may have been necessitated by some actions and inactions of the affected staff.

His hint of a possible meeting in the course of the week comes on the back of massive layoffs following the collapse of some five banks last month to form the Consolidated Bank of Ghana.

Last year the banking space witnessed the shocking takeover of two banks, UT and Capital Bank, by the largest state-owned bank, GCB Bank following a revoking of their license by the Bank of Ghana.

"I am worried that people are going home but that is also not to say that if indeed some of their activities may have caused that particular action they should not bear the brunt of it. This week God willing before the end of the week, I am going to meet all stakeholders including some of the workers, the Consolidated Bank and Bank of Ghana as well as the leaders of some labour unions. We are going to meet and see through what we should do. The laws of Ghana do allow employers to do away with workers but there are conditions that should be met," he explained.

It was widely speculated last week that the Consolidated Bank of Ghana Limited is to lay off 700 staff of the now defunct bank, Beige.

Below is a memo to unit heads after a management meeting

The outcome of today’s meeting with HR refers. Kindly adhere to the below sequence:

1) Place memos on the accounts of the attached exiting staff

2)Engage the Micro banking team (all Field Tellers, FSO internal and outsourced) today to discuss their exit, which is effective Monday, August 27, 2018



3)Notify them of the clearance procedure which includes reconciliation of their portfolios and submission of their assets to the HR office

4)Customers will be informed to avoid dealing with Field Bankers effective immediately and should visit the branches over the next 2 weeks ending 7 September 2018 for reconciliation of their passbooks.

5) Each branch has Two working weeks, effective Monday, August 27, 2018, to reconcile all customer passbooks

6) Where an FT/FSO is fully cleared by the branch after the two weeks period, communication should be sent to helpdesk-hr for approval to remove the memos from their accounts.

All should duly follow the procedure above and contact HR for further clarification where needed.

The Minister made these remarks on the sidelines of a launch of this year's MIAC Job Fair 2018 at the Accra International Conference Center today.

The two-day event will end with 100 people getting permanent employment offered by 30 companies.

The German-Ghanaian Centre for Jobs, Migration and Reintegration offers legal advice on requirements for legal migration to Germany, training and employment opportunities in Germany, training and employment opportunities in Ghana and support services for persons returning to Ghana from abroad.