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Auditor General critiques NSB’s past recruitments, new chairman defends bank’s performance
View(s):Staff recruitments to the state-owned National Savings Bank (NSB) have been bottom-heavy for years with key executive grade positions remaining vacant while other categories were filled, some with ministerial nominees.
Irregularities in recruitment at the NSB came up for examination before the Committee on Public Enterprise in Parliament this week. The bank’s Human Resources Manager admitted that 1,707 persons were recruited as staff and office assistants based on lists sent by the Finance Minister’s private secretary.
Of these, 250 were taken in this year, 38 last year and 104 in 2017. The bank’s general manager also revealed that the practice of absorbing staff based on such lists had existed since 2008. COPE instructed the NSB to submit a recruitment procedure within two months.
Meanwhile, examination of past reports of the Auditor General and the bank’s own performance reports showed a pattern. In 2016, when Ravi Karunanayake was finance minister, the bank inducted a massive 923 employees, according to its annual report.
This raised its total workforce to 4,384–still short of the approved cadre for that year which was 4,846. But the methodology adopted meant that, while there continued to be 594 vacancies at the end of December 2016, there were also 132 employees in excess.
Of the vacancies, 260 (or 31 percent) were in the executive grade, the Auditor General found. These posts remained empty throughout the year. Missing are at least ten assistant general managers, 23 chief managers, 33 senior managers and 183 assistant managers.
At the end of 2016, more than half of the jobs at the NSB–that is 2,221 positions or 51 percent of the employee pool–were held by staff assistants. The bank had recruited people below the age of 25 based on interviews and without competitive exams. “Applicants are invited for an interview by the management based on their own list without giving any public notice for suitable candidates to apply,” the Auditor General points out.
The age limit was also tampered with to facilitate the intake of 21 staff assistants. The qualifying mark was decreased from 40 to 36 to facilitate the entry of another 99 staff assistants, who were recruited in July 2016 “without any valid reason”.
These practices have continued into succeeding years, as repeatedly flagged by the Auditor General. In 2017, the approved cadre was 4,853 and the bank hired 216 new employees, raising the available workforce to 4,470. There were still two employees in excess and 386 vacancies at the end of the year.
This time, 250–or 29 percent–of vacancies were in the executive grade. There were also 83 vacancies in the non-staff grade.
NSB officials admitted that the lists had been around since 2018. However, Chairman Jayaraja Chandrasekera, a private sector career banker who joined the NSB in March this year, said nobody was taken if they did not hold the qualifications required for the respective posts. And entrants to the next grade–that is, management trainees–were always candidates who hold degrees with a class and are hired after advertising.
The COPE also commended the NSB on its profits, Mr Chandrasekera said, pointing out that its percentage of non-performing loans was just 1.6 percent. The branch network will be extended up to 300 by mid-2020 and it will implement a new core banking system. There are five female employees at the NSB for every six male workers and the retention rate has consistently remained high.
“That means our management is good,” Mr Chandrasekera pointed out. He also said that it was the practice in banks to rise through the ranks, explaining why the lower levels had higher numbers.
“Experience matters,” he explained. “We need lower level people to run the bank and to go through the mill. As for recruitments, matters we raised were accepted by the COPE which wanted us to present a due methodology for the future. This will be prepared and handed in.”
The NSB remains a Tripe A status world class bank backed by the Government and is one of the country’s safest, he said.
In the last six months the NSB’s profits had shown a 15 percent increase.