…angry staff obstructs operations for non-payment of entitlements
Following some internal management/staff crisis, scores of staff of Nnamdi Okonkwo-led financial institution, Fidelity Bank Plc, recently temporarily shut down and paralyzed other activities at the regional head office of the bank on Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos.
Their grouse was over the arbitrary policy change by the Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director of the bank, Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo.
The staffs were also protesting the non-payment of their entitlements by the bank’s administration after their un-ceremonial dismissal from the bank.
The angry staff-cum-protesters, with ‘No To Impunity at Fidelity Bank Plc’, ‘Pay Us Our Entitlements, Fidelity Bank’, ‘Enough To This Wicked Treatment by Fidelity Bank’, ‘Fidelity Bank, We Worked For This Money’, Pay Us Our Ex-Gratia, Fidelity Bank,’ placards, said the bank doesn’t care about their welfare and after service survival.
Speaking exclusively with an on-line medium, on behalf of the protesters, a Fidelity Bank staff, who identified himself as Eluwa Innocent, with staff number, F/1647, expressed that all they needed was their entitlements: “The protests came about over undue maltreatment in the system, the new Bank MD, in person of Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo, brought in a new and draconian policy into the bank’s system and denied us our gratuity and entitlements, and not only did he deny us, he started laying off people unlawfully and indiscriminately without any regard or recourse to the number of years some of us had put in.”
He added: “We demanded that this is not how it’s being done, and even at all he has a new policy in place, all we want is our entitlements and nothing more..’’
Meanwhile, on inquiry, we gathered that the protesters complained bitterly on the new policy, and stressed that the standard policy on entitlements for the banking sector is N150, 000, but after nationwide protests by Fidelity Bank workers, the management then called for a reconciliation meeting.
After the reconciliation meeting, the management decided to pay N100, 000 per year depending on the number of years they have put in, which was a far cry from the initial and original standard policy on entitlements.
But it came to them as a surprise that after the nationwide protests, the bank surreptitiously called on selected affected staff and paid them their entitlements.
