* How DMBs Use Outsourcing Firms To Cut Costs, Corners Using Contract Workers
By John Danjuma Omachonu
“I Sold Our Land For A Contract That Killed Me”
For more than three years, Jango Blue, not his real name, 29, woke up with no job and no hope. A graduate of Banking and Finance from a federal university, he sent out CVs, attended interviews, and watched younger classmates get ahead.
Then a “connection” called, telling him that a bank, with headquarters in Lagos, is recruiting contract staff. “But you have to bring ₦400,000. It’s for processing through the outsourcing company,” he said
Blue didn’t have ₦400,000. His parents didn’t either.
So they made a decision that would haunt them. They sold the family’s small plot of land in one of the States, the only asset they had and borrowed the rest from relatives.
“They told me it was an investment in my future,” Blue said. “That, once I was in, I would be confirmed in 6 months.”
The outsourcing firm, XYZ, Corporate Support Services Limited, one of several firms alleged to be linked to a member of the bank’s board, processed his papers in 2 weeks. He was posted to a busy branch in one of the states in the North Central part of the country.
Not to customer service. Not to marketing, but to the cash counting section.
From 8am to 5pm, six days a week, Blue and other contract staff sat in a poorly ventilated room counting millions in cash. The dust from old notes filled the air. There were no air purifiers, no masks, no rotation. Permanent staff rarely entered.
Within six months, Blue developed a chronic cough. His chest burned. He went to the bank’s clinic twice and was given paracetamol and told to “rest.”
Contract staff don’t have HMO,” a supervisor told him. “If it’s serious, go to your own hospital.”
He had no money. The ₦150,000 monthly pay went to rent, feeding, and repaying the debt from the land sale.
After 11 months, he was called into HR. “Your contract will not be renewed,” they said. No reason. No severance package. No pension. Just 30 days’ notice.
For thousands of Nigerian graduates, a job letter from a bank is the dream. But for many hired as “contract staff” through outsourcing companies, that dream comes with a price tag, no pension, no health cover, and deployment to high-risk sections.
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Many of these firms are allegedly either owned by the bank executives or their proxies, or they have substantial interest in these companies.
The result, according to the analysts, is a growing class of contract staff who do bank work without bank benefits.
They are deployed to cash centers, branches in volatile areas, and other hazardous units without pension contributions, insurance, or medical care outside company clinics.
From The Street, (FTS) gathered that it is a system where candidates allegedly pay proxies to secure jobs, while working under conditions one staffer summed up as: ‘you perish, we survive”.
Allegations:
Multiple sources allege candidates pay intermediaries between ₦200,000 – ₦500,000 to secure contract placements.
Besides, no pension remittance, no HMO beyond basic clinic access, no loan facilities.
Also, contract staff are disproportionately posted to cash-in-transit, night operations, and branches in insecure areas.
Infact, FTS further gathered that their condition is comparatively better than those of security personnel, whose hiring firms pay them lesser.
Experts say this is creating a class of a new “Elite Internally Displaced Persons” ( EIDPs). “Educated, employed on paper, but displaced from any path to stability, career progression.”
Claims By Banks:
Banks claim outsourcing reduces cost and risk. But critics argue it has created a two-tier system of permanent staff with full benefits, and contract staff who can be dropped with 30 days’ notice.
MBN could not ascertain the authenticity of the alleged overt interests of some of the board and management staff of the banks in the Human Resources Outsourcing firms or the banks are aware of the extortion by the firms, during recruitment processes.
Neither the HR firm nor the bank allegedly involved in the deal, headquartered in Lagos, have yet to respond to MBN’s messages to them.
Ownership Questions/Conflict Of Interests
Sources allege some outsourcing firms are owned by bank executives or their associates, creating a conflict of interests. The practice allows banks to cut labour costs while maintaining control over hiring.
Labour unions say this violates the spirit of the Labour Act. But unfortunately, labour and bank unions which were very strong in their oppositions to contract staffing in the recent past, have suddenly turned their eyes the other ways, while the injustices continue
Regulatory Gaps:
There is currently no CBN or SEC guideline capping contract tenure or mandating equal pay for equal work in banks.
The analysts say until the regulators step in, the contract will remain the beginning and ending of the line for many young Nigerians chasing a banking career.
For now, the message to contract staff remains the same: “you work, you risk, you go.”