I Will Recieve 40% Pay Cut- Access Bank CEO

Photo Credit: accessbankplc.com

The chief executive officer of Access Bank,Herbert Wigwe, admits that he is willing to take a 40% pay cut as part of efforts to cut operating costs. He empathized with staff saying “everybody may have to make some adjustments of some sort”.

“We probably don’t need as many security men as required, even to the fact that we are not going to have all our branches open between now and December,” he said.

“We certainly don’t need all the security men. We don’t need all the tea girls. We don’t all the cleaners. We don’t need all the tellers

“So that number of staff which represent 75% of our staff strength, I think, is the one we basically need to speak with their employers with a view to getting them to rationalise to the level that we think will be necessary to basically sustain a mean but actually a customer service-oriented institution.”

Wigwe said discussions are already ongoing with recruiting agencies and contracting firms on how to cut back on the workforce.

The Bank's CEO assured that this conditions would normalize when things improve as the adjustments are necessary to survive the difficult times.

“What is important is that these adjustments are what is required at a time when we see Armageddon when we see great difficulty coming in, to make sure that if there is one institution left standing in this country as a bank, it must be Access Bank,” he said.

“We appreciate the fact that it is going to hurt people but we necessarily have to take that adjustment to ensure that we protect our franchise and make us stronger as we move into the future.”

Source: The Cable