The Minority in Parliament has asked government to intervene in the sacking of hundreds of employees of defunct UT and Capital banks acquired by GCB Bank Ltd.

Minority Spokesperson on Employment Dr Kwabena Donkor said the state had a "duty" to protect the jobs of "staff who had no hand in the problem of the banks".

After running into cash flow crisis, UT and Capital banks had their licenses withdraw by the Bank of Ghana on August 15.

Photo: Anxious staff of UT bank gathered the morning news of the bank's collapse broke.

Their assets were acquired by GCB Bank and a combined staff of the defunct entities pegged at more than 1,300 were absorbed.

But GCB stressed the retention of the staff was only temporary. It said a skills assessment would be conducted before any further action is taking on how many of these anxious employees would be retained.

The central bank also said “for the first three months up to six months they [GCB Bank] are retaining all branches and they will manage all the staff”

Close to two months since the take-over, myjoyonline.com sources at GCB Bank Ltd have revealed some 700 of these staff are likely to go home, leaving about 600 workers.

But top management staffs are expected to be retained, myjoyonline.com sources have said.

Wading into the terminations discussion, Pru East MP Kwabena Donkor believes the crushing of the two banks was avoidable in the first place.

He said he expected the government to come to the rescue of UT and Capital banks, taking inspiration from the US-style bail-out for banks during the financial crisis in 2008.

"Banks struggle all over the world", he said.

But if the state has failed to prevent the collapse of the two banks, the least it could have done is to secure the jobs of the former employees of the two banks, the MP argued.

He branded the sacking as "unacceptable, unethical and unprofessional" claiming the scale of the deployment was shocking.

He said although some job losses were imminent after the August take-over, he expected the cuts would affect managers at two collapsed banks and not "ordinary workers".

He told Joy News, the sacking "leaves much to be desired" and raises "issues of integrity" in the work of the central bank.

He was unequivocal in blaming the Bank of Ghana for weak supervision. "Problems don't just start in a day...but the Bank of Ghana has woefully failed".

He said he expected the BoG in the least to secure the jobs of staff like the "ordinary tellers, accountants".