Akwa Savings and Loans sacks 40 staff

The Akwa Savings and Loans Limited, owned by the Akwa Ibom government, said it had disengaged about 40 employees.

The bank’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Ebong Bassey, disclosed this at an interactive session with newsmen in Uyo on Monday.

He said, “We have disengaged 40 of our staff and very soon more than 50 others will also be disengaged.

“This is a move to aggressively restructure the bank and reposition it for global competitiveness.”

Bassey said that the move would also strengthen the capital base of the bank.

He also said that some branches of the bank would be shut to enhance productivity and quality control.

According to him, some of the employees of the bank, who have been indicted by a special panel on various cases of fraudulent practices, are being interrogated by the police and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

He said that the previous management of the bank had deviated from the core mandate and vision of the founding fathers of the struggling bank.

Bassey blamed the previous management for running the bank as a charitable organisation, adding that his management team inherited N1.8bn debt and within five months of his assumption of office, recovered N1.4m.

He said, “We are doing everything within our power to ensure that we recover all the money.”

The managing director promised to publish names of the bank’s debtors as soon as the external auditors submitted their report in March.

He said that many debtors had written and submitted post-dated cheques to the bank to prevent their names from being published.

The managing director assured esteemed customers that the new management was resolute to reposition the bank to meet modern banking standards.