The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, said on Friday that 1,000 former staff of the apex bank left voluntarily with payment of full benefits.
He stated this during an investigative hearing put together by the House of Representatives to probe the disengagement of the 1000 workers.
The Green Chamber is also investigating how the N50 billion terminal benefits were arrived at by the CBN.
The ex-staff left the services of the apex bank in December last year.
Cardoso, who was represented at the hearing by CBN’s Deputy Director of Corporate Service, Mr. Bala Bello, said the affected staff were not disengaged or forced to quit the apex bank.
He added that the early exit programme and reorganisation were to prepare the bank for effective service delivery.
The CBN governor said: “These are ways and means through which the performance of an organization is optimized by putting, ensuring that round pegs are put in right holes. The manpower requirement of the bank is met.
“The man loading which is the key responsibility, key performance indicator 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, chairman, 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 exit the bank voluntarily actually emanated on the part of the staff. And I believe the Central Bank is not necessarily the first organization to have done that.
“ I’m very happy to mention, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that the early exit program of the Central Bank is 100 percent 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.”