The Managing Director of adb Bank, John Kofi Mensah, says the bank as part of its efforts to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 internally, has allowed 45 percent of its workforce to go on mandatory leave.
This follows a directive from the Bank of Ghana asking all financial institutions operating in the country to make sure their staff and customers comply with the social distancing practice as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
He however says the shortfall will not affect the bank’s critical operations since measures have been put in place to keep the bank running smoothly.
Speaking to Citibusiness News after announcing a donation of a million cedis package to help government fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Mensah said the internal measures will protect both staff and customers.
Last week, we took a bold decision to let forty five percent of our total staff strength go on temporary leave. So, as I am speaking to you now, they are gone. We have a total staff population of 1,400, and forty five percent are off now for a period of two weeks. All national service personnel that we recruited in compliance even before the directive came from the National Service were also asked to go on temporary leave. We have over the weekend being able to secure the security cards for our critical staff also,” he stated.
He is hopeful the one million cedis package from which two hundred thousand cedis will go directly into the COVID-19 fund, will help the national fight against the pandemic.
“It’s a donation of one million Ghana Cedis as a package to support the government’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic. This decision was arrived at a board meeting last week and it is to be used in purchasing personal protective equipment’s like hand gloves, face masks, hand sanitizers and other disinfectants to be distributed to medical research institutions like the Nugochi Memorial Institute, selected regional hospitals, Ghana Medical Association, Pharma-based organizations, the Ghana police service amongst others,” he added
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