THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may have broken its own stated rules in employing new hands into its service as it recruited 698 employees in 2010 without any publicity as required by its statutes.  Reliable sources, on Friday, said there was no evidence that the apex bank placed a single advert in any of the national papers or even on its website.

Investigations confirmed that the CBN actually recruited the stated number of staff, as disclosed in its recently released 2010 annual report.

This comes as the apex bank began the process of paying its pensioners, based on the Supreme Court judgment and following recent High Court order that those who were contesting the payment were being frivolous. 

The payment began a couple of days ago with the disbursement of 40 per cent to the pensioners. 

The Guardian has consistently, but exclusively, been reporting the trauma faced by the aged CBN pensioners who have reportedly lost over 100 of their members while waiting for the harmonisation of their pension for over 10 years that the case lasted. 

The CBN, it was gathered, has also laid out the process of paying the outstanding 60 per cent of money owed the pensioners promising that the balance will be paid over a period of two years at six months interval. This means that the payment will be made in four installments. 

The pensioners are relieved but pray that the CBN will honour its pledge in full. They, however, regretted the death of many of their members while the battle lasted in the courts. 

A source privy to the recruitment process at the CBN said, yesterday, that “the significant addition of new staff by the bank is a reversal of the Soludo era, when the CBN actually cut down staff and pushed the CBN to become leaner and more efficient organisation.” 

Giving a breakdown of the recruitment, the CBN, in its report, noted that it recruited two staff in the executive category, 529 senior staff, 162 junior staff and five contract staff. 

The report shows that the total staff strength of the CBN now stands at 5,568. This represents an additional 558 employees compared to 5010 staff employed in the bank by 2010. 

The apex bank also lost about 140 staff through death, resignation, termination of employment and retirement. 

Investigation, including search on the apex bank’s website, revealed no evidence of an advertisement in any national paper asking applicants to apply for the filled positions, as statutorily required. 

However, the jobs page on its website provides the following information on its recruitment policies. 

“The CBN offers equal opportunity to all prospective employees. The Bank’s policy is to recruit staff of the highest calibre through fair and open processes. The aims are to ensure:  that the right person is selected for the right position, a credible, consistent, fair, open and accountable procedure is adopted; and that all applicants have a positive view of the Bank and its operations.” 

The CBN states that its recruitment policy is that: “All appointments shall be made on the basis of merit, through a fair and open selection process. The principles underlying the recruitment process are those of fairness, credibility, equal employment opportunities, merit and optimisation of career prospects for currently employed staff.” 

On the process of recruitment, the CBN states on its website that “Recruitment of new personnel into the Bank’s service is done as the need arises and could be general or targeted at filling selected positions.” 

It states further that “in order to ensure that the information is available to all parts of Nigeria, vacant positions are advertised in six (6) widely circulated national newspapers and the recruitment form page on this website. Applications are welcomed from candidates in and outside Nigeria.” 

However, when the CBN “recruitment form page is clicked, the response is “From time to time, we have vacancies. Currently there are no vacancies available. You will, therefore, not be able to submit your CV.” 

A search on the CBN website also did not bring up any recently placed recruitment advert. The adverts that showed up were those of the IMF, which came on a recruitment mission to Nigeria in November 2009. 

Investigations also showed that the new recruitments may have significantly added to a sharp 104 per cent increase in the CBN’s salaries and wages bill in 2010 to N51.92 billion, from N25.9 billion in 2009. The CBN’s annual report also shows that it has a gratuity bill of N37 billion on its books. The bank until December 2009 maintained a hybrid pension scheme that combined both the defined benefit scheme and the contribution scheme. It now says it has discontinued the defined benefits scheme. According to the CBN, it stuck with the defined benefit scheme for some of its staff even after the new pension Act in 2004.

Posted by admin on Aug 27 2011. Filed under Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Latest Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry