Thursday, 26 February 2015

7 Reasons Why You Should Not Be A Banker - By A Bank's Stakeholder

Kike decided to walk back home after a 10 kilometer commute to her Uncle’s house. She felt she needed to ponder over the advice her uncle just gave her. A few days earlier she had received a call from him raising her hopes that he could use his position as a major stakeholder in a bank to help get a job. Kike read architecture in school but had no plans of practicing as an architect.



She just wanted to start earning cool cash just like some of her friends currently do. After all, her brother is a chemical engineer but is currently a senior manager in a bank. The advice from her uncle dented her ego immensely; she still doesn’t know how to react. Why should her uncle give her the following reasons not to be a banker?



You work an average 10 hours


Banks typically open to customers by 8am and close to customers between 4pm to 5pm. However, the same does not apply to employees of these banks who work for almost 12 hours. An average banker works between 7.30am to 6pm and for employees on essential services it can last for as much as 12 hours (8am-8pm). If you are not up for working long hours for someone else then you probably should not consider being a banker.



You have no time for friends and family


Banking services require a lot of attention, dedication and concentration. When you work for about 10 hours daily there is hardly time to attend to some of the most important things in life such as spending time with family. Most young couples who are bankers often find little time to play with their kids or help then with school work or attend school activities. The negative consequences of this cannot be over emphasized.



You leave home early and get home late


We talked about having to work 10 hours daily however, that is not all, if works starts for you by 7.30 then you probably need to be at work one hour earlier. To beat the traffic and get to work earlier means leaving your house as early as 6 am. An average banker wakes up 5 am just to get to work before 7.30am. They also leave much later than most other professions. Most banks hardly keep to the nine to five rule and despite that, they do hardly pay overtime allowances for the extra time you put in.



You get fired very easily


The banking sector is quite exposed to a lot of regulatory and cyclical risk. When the economy is bad like it currently is, they are quick to run up cost as revenues declines. They also face increase in bad loans as most companies groaning under the risk of economic crunch struggle to pay back loans. When this happens, banks are forced to cut down cost hence the need to ‘downsize’ employees. Typically, decisions like this affect even the hardest working staff. It doesn’t matter if you work 24 hours or sleep over during the weekend. Most times when you get fired, you have no place to go because you are brain-drained. Imagine if Kike gets fired after working for five years. Surely she will find it difficult going back to architecture. In addition, a little mistake can get you fired regardless of your past record.



The most hardworking doesn’t mean the most rewarded



Banking is a service oriented job where money is made by earning high returns from customer deposits. Therefore, even if an operation staff works from 7am to 9pm every day, he will likely get less reward from a marketer who works 8am to 5pm every day but brings in the cash. The marketer only just needs to meet his or her targets in terms of deposits. Though an equally difficult task considering the apparent hazards, the difference however is that a marketer’s achievement is quickly noticeable hence likely to be rewarded more often.



Promotions take too long to come by



These days banking is a bit more like the civil service. In the nineties, a ten year working experience can fetch you a senior managerial position. Career development was fast tracked at the time as the new generation banks at the time sought new talents. It is not that way these days as you probably need to work twice as long to attain the same position as you would back them. It could take you as long as ten years to become an assistant manager. Promotions in banks probably come every other two years and it is not certain that you will get it.



Risk using your salary to pay for lost money


There are numerous risks associated with working in a bank and the major one is losing money. It is likely, that you might come across a transaction that might warrant you losing the bank’s money. Typically when that happens you might be asked to refund the money from your salary. The bank will just debit your salary for the whole amount or deduct it over time. The alternative to this might be losing your job.



These are just examples that you need to consider and talking to a banker may even reveal more things to you. Banking is a noble profession and can be very rewarding if you work hard, add more academic qualifications and have some luck. However, it is not a bed of roses.



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pix- Ugodre Obi Chukwu, the writer




'Nigerians Beware! GEJ Procures N11bn Equipment To Tap Your Phones' - PremiumTimes

Nigeria’s active 120 million GSM subscribers need to know this: The Nigeria Police, the Department of State Services [DSS] and the Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited [NIGCOMSAT] are, on behalf of the Nigerian government, possibly hacking your phones and listening in to your conversations.



The three state agencies are able to do this with the aid of an over N11 billion sophisticated equipment procured and installed for them by President Goodluck Jonathan.



Knowing what Nigerians are discussing over the telephone was too important a necessity for Mr. Jonathan that he awarded two different contracts for the same purpose in less than two months interval.



On August 31, 2010, less than six months after he became acting president, Mr. Jonathan awarded an approximately N6billion contract to an Israeli-owned but Abuja-based security firm, V & V Nigeria Limited, for the “Procurement of strategic GSM Tracking System for the Nigeria Police Force and expansion/upgrade of the existing system with the DSS”.



The project, awarded to the contractor by the Ministry of Police Affairs, was jointly hosted by the Nigeria Police and Nigeria Communication Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), under the Nigeria Police Reform Programme.



Less than two months after – October 21, 2010 – another N2.61 billion contract was awarded by the same Ministry of Police Affairs “for the procurement of Strategic GSM Tracking and Interception Systems for the Department of State Services, under the Nigeria Police Reform”.

This other contract, which appears a duplicate of the first, was awarded to a British security firm, Gamma TSE Limited, which, according to the information on its website, “manufactures highly specialized surveillance vehicles and integrated surveillance systems, helping government agencies collect data and communicate it to key decision-makers for timely decisions to be made”.

The two clearly similar projects were however neither budgeted for nor listed among contracts approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in 2010. They were also not captured in the government’s budget implementation reports for that year.

There is also no indication that the contracts complied with Nigeria’s public procurement law, which requires competitive bidding for government contracts of that magnitude.

Yet there was a separate project in the 2010 budget by the Nigeria Police Force (not the Ministry of Police Affairs) for “the procurement of GSM interception and tracking equipment installed in 10 configured vehicles (security/criminal intelligence)” for which N2.5billion was budgeted.

It is not clear whether this other project was executed at the time, but it was also not captured in the budget implementation report as well as FEC approvals for the year.

Insiders at the State Security Service, the Nigerian Police and the NIGCOMSAT said while Gamma TSE delivered on the contract awarded to it, they were not sure that V & V, linked to a top politician from the South-South, performed satisfactorily.

Gamma TSE could not be reached for comments. Repeated telephone calls to its London office were neither answered nor returned.

V & V also declined to comment when contacted by PREMIUM TIMES. The official, who answered the call made to the company’s Abuja office, directed all enquiries on the project to the Ministry of Police Affairs.

But the spokesperson for the Ministry of Police Affairs, James Odaudu, also declined comments, just like his counterpart at NIGCOMSAT, Sonny Aragba-Akpore. Both officials said they should not be expected to divulge details about security-related installations.

Details about these new surveillance contracts emerged about 22 months after PREMIUM TIMES exposed a similar $40 million surveillance contract the administration secretly, also in open violation of lawful contracting procedures, awarded to an Israeli firm, Elbit Systems, with headquarters in Haifa.

At the time, Nigerian rights activists considered the project one of the most far-reaching policies ever designed in the country’s history to invade the privacy of citizens.

The clandestine programme allows the government spy on citizens’ computers and Internet communications and emails under the guise of intelligence gathering and national security.



Embarrassed by the widespread national outrage that arose after this newspaper exclusively exposed the secret contract, the presidency had summoned the management of Elbit Systems for a meeting to explain why the contract should not be revoked after it allegedly breached a confidential clause in the contract.



In May 2013, the House of Representatives asked the federal government to suspend the contract, saying it was awarded in breach of the Fiscal Responsibility Act and that the deployment of such spy equipment would violate citizens’ constitutional rights.

The House then ordered the immediate suspension of the project to allow its Committees on Information and Computer Technology, Human Rights, and National Security, to conduct an inquiry.



The House is however yet to make the outcome of its enquiry public, and the project has since gone ahead. Intelligence sources say the Internet Spy device has since come alive.



The spying on telephone and Internet communications of citizens is continuing despite the country not having any law in place to regulate such undertakings by the nation’s security agencies.



The Cybercrime Bill 2014, which allows a measure of communication interception, is yet to be passed into law by the National Assembly.

Part 3 Section 22 of the Bill, which deals with Interception of electronic communications, says: “Where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the content of any electronic communication is reasonably required for the purposes of a criminal investigation or proceedings, a Judge may on the basis of information on oath: (a) order a service provider, through the application of technical means to collect, record, permit or assist competent authorities with the collection or recording of content data associated with specified communications transmitted by means of a computer system; or (b) authorize a law enforcement officer to collect or record such data through application or technical means.”



However, the bill, initiated by the presidency, was passed in December by the Senate but it only scaled second reading in the House of Representatives on Tuesday and was referred to the House committees on justice and information for further scrutiny.

When eventually passed by both chambers, it would be harmonised and then sent to the President for assent.





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Russian TV actor wakes up to find his testicles stolen by organ traffickers


Police in Russia have launched a full scale search for a gang of organ traffickers including a sexy lady and doctor who drugged 30 year old TV Soap actor Dmitry Nikolaev and removed his testicles.



According to reports, Dmitry, a married man, met with a random young blonde woman who approached him at a bar after he finished a performance at a small Moscow theatre. They both had drinks and afterwards she invited him for a sauna which he obliged. And then lost his testicles..lol. Continue...








At the sauna, the two kissed and had some beer and that was the last he remembered. He said he woke up the next morning at a bus stop, feeling acute pain, with blood on his trousers. His testicles had been cut off.



The police believe the lady and her gang intend to sell his testicle at the human organ black market. The actor, now working as a children's animator, was too embarrassed at first to explain what had happened to his wife, but later did. They are now looking for his testicles...