Diamond Bank Chairman raises
alarm over threat to FSS 2020
By AMECHI OGBONNA
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
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Photo:
Sun News Publishing |
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Chairman of Diamond Bank Plc, and the Obi of Onitsha, His
Royal Majesty Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, (CFR,) has warned that
Nigeria stands the risk of losing the lofty targets set out
in the Financial System Strategy (FSS ) 2020, blueprint if
the current manpower crisis facing the banking sector was
not urgently tackled.
The monarch, who was chairman at the valedictory speech presentation
ceremony, by the immediate past President of the Chartered
Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Mrs Juliet Madubueze,
in Lagos last week, said the dearth of indigenous manpower
in critical areas of the banking industry poses a great challenge
to the sustenance of the gains recorded from the consolidation
programme, and could certainly threaten the nation’s
dream of becoming the financial nucleus of the African continent.
He said that the problem has assumed an alarming proportion
to the extent that the industry can rarely boast of very reliable
and trusted hands than can handle strategic assignment needed
to sustain the achievement already recorded by the recent
banking reform programme.
Igwe Achebe, explained that the last consolidation programme
has given significant leverage to the Nigerian banking industry,
to the extent that about eleven of the banks got ranked among
the first 1000financial institutions in the world in terms
of tier one capital.
According to him, the sector’s credit to the economy
has doubled from the position it was prior to the consolidation,
with dramatic upsurge in credit to retail customers. The monarch
revealed that it was largely on the strength of these realities
that foreign investors are now lining up to invest in the
emerging opportunities in the nation’s economy.
He then warned that the country stood the risk of losing these
opportunities, if the requisite manpower needed to sustain
the tempo of financial progression in the sector was not available.
The Obi of Onitsha, who admitted the banking industry has
become very key to him, as the chairman of one of the leading
financial institutions in the country, called on all the remaining
banks to take up the challenge of training and retaining their
employees, at a time that staff turnover has reached alarming
dimension in the industry.
While admonishing the management of the various banks to
partner some of the leading tertiary institutions in the country
and the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC), to
resolve these problems, Igwe Achebe stated that the institutions
that would remain competitive in the emerging dispensation,
would be those which take recruitment, training and retention
of quality manpower very seriously
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