|
The implementation of the Business Process
Reengineering (BPR) study at the Development Bank of
Ethiopia (DBE) has negatively impacted on 40 of its
employees, who were given forced leave. Executives
at the state-owned bank circulated this decision to
the employees on Friday, August 8, 2008, after
finalizing the core and support process of the
study, which took exactly two years.
“They will be paid their salary and benefits until
further decisions are made on their fate,” a
reliable source at the DBE disclosed to Fortune.
Of these employees, 28 are those due for retirement,
and those with bad disciplinary records, according
to the source. Another five have the choice of
either working in a lower profile job or resigning.
The remaining seven, who do not have a degree, a
minimum requirement for their posts, might be
regraded to posts suiting their qualifications when
the bank finalizes the study.
The century-old DBE began BPR in August 2006. Since
then, the bank has undergone a series of
restructuring exercises at top management level.
One month earlier, three of the five top management
members of the bank at Million Dembel, Gezahegn
Mitiku and Tirfu Adhanom branches unseated.
Employees who are victims of this streamlining are
appalled by DBE’s latest move. Bogale Abiyu, a
53-year old credit specialist who has been employed
by DBE for 18 years, was no exception.
“It is atrociously inhuman,” he said. “I am now
wondering how I will support my family of 10.”
The restructuring exercise may cost him the 4,800 Br
monthly salary he had been earning.
In 1993, 13 employees were similarly affected at the
Bank. DBE, which has 905 employees, is implementing
BPR at its head office at Kazanchis, and at its
branches all over the country.
The bank has yet to finalize the reengineering in
some of its departments. Sections that still need to
undergo major facelifts are Branch Coordination,
Corporate Planning and Resource Mobilization,
Internal Audit, Human Resource (partially), Property
Administration Process, Public Relations, and Export
Guarantee Scheme and Project Management Process. In
two months, these departments will undergo a similar
fate, marking the completion of the reform exercise
at the bank.
The BPR on research, risk management, finance and
information technology service has been completed
while that on procurement, transport, human
resources, training and development, recruitment and
staff benefits still await revision by the board.
Before implementing the process, members of the
committee visited various African and Asian Banks
that have gone through the same experience in order
to learn from them.
DBE is among the many federal and regional state
agencies that are undertaking BPR programmes in a
bid to provide the public with efficient, speedy and
transparent services. It is also struggling to
improve its financial portfolio by trying to lower
its current over 30pc Non Performing Loans to below
15pc. |
