Commercial banks are expected to retrench at least over 1000 employees by the end of the year it has been claimed.
The Botswana Bank Union (BBU) has accused commercial banks of not doing enough to save jobs rather than some banks deliberately relocating some of their operations outside the country for no good reasons.
According to one of the letters from the union addressed to Standard Chartered Bank Botswana, the union claimed that the bank has closed six branches in spite of the State of Emergency in place.
The letter dated 02 September 2021 states that the bank is “currently exiting 100 employees plus, a fraction of this number has been exited already under a dubious mutual separation scheme which was hatched by the bank management.”
The chairperson of the trade union Mills Tlhoro has confirmed to this publication that dozens of bank employees face a bleak future as scores of them will be retrenched before the end of the year.
Thoro explained that since the end of the State of Emergency most of the banks have embarked on retrenchment excercises with hundreds of employees expected to lose their jobs in the name of “digitalisation”.
He described the digitalisation exercise as “day light robbery” in the sense that employees are being cheated by their employers.
Tlhoro accused the banks of not doing enough to safeguard job opportunities as some of the banks have deliberately relocated some of their operations to other countries for no apparent reason.
He recalled that Standard Chartered has relocated some of its operations to India while other banks have also relocated some of their call centres to neighbouring South Africa.
“Why should it be like that?” he asked rhetorically.
He said the union has written to both central bank and the office of the president complaining about what he called the bad conduct of some banks but unfortunately they have not yet responded.
Tlhoro assured bank employees that the union will do whatever it can to ensure that they get the right packages. “If there is a need to go to court the union will take those banks that route,” he warned.
He urged Batswana to come to the party and “form a sound bank just like Botswana Building Society and compete with these international banks that have no interest of the employees.
Efforts to get a response from the Minister of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development Mpho Balopi were futile.
