Reps wade into retrenchment of 300 Diamond Bank workers

Following the re­trenchment of over 300 staff of Diamond Bank PLC in May 2016, the commer­cial bank on Wednes­day failed to appear before the House of Representatives Com­mittee on Public Peti­tion after it was sum­moned.
The Committee sum­moned the bank to ap­pear before it to give explanation on the matter.
This followed a peti­tion which was earlier submitted by Stephen Ofagbor, counsel to the retrenched workers to the house of Represen­tatives.
The petition which alleged that the re­trenchment was un­constitutional, unlaw­ful, illegal unwarranted, null and void, called on the bank to reverse its decision.
According to Ofag­bor, the affected staff have taken several steps towards their reinstate­ment or payment of their terminal benefits, including a demand letter from their solici­tor, but all to no avail as the bank rebuffed all approaches.
He also alleged that the affected persons were not given the op­portunity to repay the loan as scheduled and are being charged inter­est on the unpaid bal­ance, which they would not be in a position to pay except they are re­called or paid their re­dundancy benefits.
“Each of the re­trenched staff’s entitle­ment is based on rank and number of years served and they have seized of all the par­ticulars of each of them for purposes of com­puting their individual entitlement.
“The action of Dia­mond bank has caused the affected persons enormous hardship, psychological trauma, great embarrassment and above all stigmati­sation”, he said.
Ofagbo further stated that the retrenchment, if not adequately re­dressed, portends great risk to employees in the industry and also to the employees.
The Chairman of the Committee, Nkem Abonta, however, ad­journed the hearing to 7th of May 2017 to en­able the committee to communicate further to Diamond bank. -The Authority