FIJ
Federal Government workers whose salary accounts are domiciled with Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) have not been paid for the month of October, while their colleagues with accounts in other banks have already received their salaries.
Sources told FIJ that many of these workers banking with financial institutions such as First Bank, Zenith, Access, Polaris and StanbicIBTC have received their pay since Monday.
FIJ is aware that GTBank customers have generally been experiencing challenges with their funds and accounts for weeks because the bank kicked off its migration to a new core banking system on October 11.
However, what was meant to be a successful transition has turned into a source of frustration. Checks by FIJ show that many customers are still experiencing service disruptions, inability to access their funds and failed transactions.
For some of the government workers FIJ spoke with, the delayed salaries predate the upgrade by the bank. They said it has now become a norm for the salaries of GTBank users to be delayed for inexplicable reasons.
FIJ gathered that numerous work groups have been flooded with complaints from affected GTBank users while their colleagues receive their salaries.
“GTBank is such a useless bank. This is not the first time. And it cuts across different federal government agencies,” one of the workers told FIJ.
“I am currently in GTBank, and I have seen someone who has come because of salary issues. For my agency, it is only those of us using GTBank that have not received salaries.”
Another staff, who does not want to be named, told FIJ that issues like this should not be happening amid the ongoing economic hardship in the country.
The source said: “Our colleagues have been paid since Monday, but we don’t know our fate. This is even besides the fact that the salary is not on the high side. Many of us have debts to pay.
“It is such a sad situation when your colleagues get paid before you all the time. But with whatever upgrade they claim to be working on, it’s worse and terrible. If you transfer, it won’t deliver. When people transfer money to you, you won’t even get an alert. It’s bad.”
FIJ also learnt that some of the workers are hearing rumours in various WhatsApp groups that the bank is no longer in operation.
