The Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) on Tuesday kicked against the ongoing sales of the bridge banks by the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).
The bridge banks are Keystone, Enterprise and Mainstreet.
AMCON had last month announced the investment arm of Heritage Banking Company Limited, HBCL Investment Services Limited, as preferred bidder for Enterprise Bank and on Saturday announced Skye Bank the preferred bidder for Mainstreet Bank Ltd.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Decent Work Day organised by ASSBIFI in Ikeja, Lagos, the association’s president, Sunday Olusoji Salako, declared that workers in the banks and financial industry will not accept and will resist the ongoing sales of banks by AMCON without carrying them along as spelt out in the labour laws.
He said, “We are against the secret deals involved in the recent appointment made by AMCON to Barclays Africa Group Ltd. and Afrinvest as financial advisers for the divestment of its shareholding in Mainstreet Bank Limited as it negates sections of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as well as extant labour laws on workers’ rights in the country”.
Arguing that the recent sale of Enterprise Bank as regional bank by AMCON was still being investigated, Salako called on the workers in the banking industry to be united in the current struggle to confront the huge challenges facing them.
“Workers in the financial sector in the past have been facing massive unemployment, vast inequalities in wealth and opportunity, gender discrimination and attacks on the very foundations of democratic rights, including workers’ rights to freely organise unions and bargain collectively”, he said.
“We call for the struggle, using the gains of the October 7 annual Decent Work Day organised by ASSBIFI in Nigeria as a platform through which we can work for a better future”, he added
