NIB staff hail Supreme Court ruling; relieved to keep jobs

Some employees of the National Investment Bank (NIB) have described the Supreme Court ruling on the bank’s rice deal with Eland Ghana as timely.

They say it allayed their fears over what they as deemed imminent job losses whilst repositioning the bank for improved performance.

The Supreme Court last week cleared the bank of a $120 million judgment debt case involving the purported issuance of some promissory notes by some unidentified investors some seven years ago.

The Managing Director, John Asamoah said the negative impact of the case on the bank’s operations cannot be overemphasised.

“As a bank, if you have such a huge liability around your neck, only a few institutions are willing to deal with you.

“It negatively affected our trading business to a point that all our corresponding banks suspended our credit lines for the simple reason that the liability crystallises what is going to happen to us; folding up.

He said in Ghana it got so serious that all the multinational banks failed to deal with NIB, not even an overnight lending.

Now that the storm is over, Mr Asamoah said they see the ruling as the beginning of big things to happen as it gives their stakeholders the confidence to deal with them.

“Staff morale had been very low, especially since the date for judgment was announced. We tried to manage it knowing very well that the bank will fold up if we lost the case. We are happy that it is off our necks after seven years,” he said excitedly.

Some staff of the bank also tells JOY BUSINESS, aside from the expected rapid growth in the bank’s operations, the verdict provides a huge relief for them now as far as their job security is concerned.

"Now customers are happy to transact business with us and they can walk into any of our branches to do banking," one of them said.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Joy Business