About 200 employees of Bank of Africa, BoA Ghana are to be laid-off by March next year. The process which is already underway would however not necessarily affect only Junior staff. That’s according to management which adds the decision is aimed at streamlining the bank’s operations for enhanced service-delivery. Speaking to JOY BUSINESS, Chief Executive, Kobby Andah noted the retrenchment exercise has been necessitated by the bank’s new operational model established after the acquisition of Amal Bank earlier this year. “Before we came into Ghana, we did the due diligence; we looked at the strengths of the bank as well as the areas that we thought were weaknesses that we can untap value from now. The fact is, we are outsourcing a lot of services because we believe that we should stick to our core business of banking. I mean we are neither a transport company, an IT firm, a cleaning company nor a security company. We therefore need to give these aspects of our operations to those who have specialized in them. The staff of these categories are consequently those who unfortunately would be affected. For example, departments like Internal Control are those we think we do not need to have as part of our internal operation" he continued According to Mr. Andah, special measures have however been instituted to alleviate the negative repercussions of the exercise on the staff in question. He noted that aside from above-average severance-packages, special arrangements have also been made to ensure a smooth process. “Contrary to other assertions the lay-offs is rather a unilateral decision by the bank, we’ve instead discussed and reached a consensus with the staff. We’ve told those affected that we’ll make sure we give them a “soft-landing”.We’re all Ghanaians and we know there are emotional issues here. We therefore intend getting them two consultants; one to help them handle the psychological issues that come with such lay-offs at our cost and a financial advisor to help them invest their monies properly” he concluded.