The Director General of SSNIT has assured no worker of Merchant Bank will be laid off following First Rand’s takeover. Merchant bank last week announced accepting an offer from South Africa’s second biggest finance group to acquire 75 percent stake in the bank. Such takeover’s often result in downsizing of the institution by the new owners.But Dr. Frank Odoom tells JOY-BUSINESS it will not be the case for merchant bank. "For the generality of the staff, redundancy is not going to be a problem. The staff of Merchant Bank are as safe as they could be because there will be no quick desire to move people away. This is also because we want to make sure that the bank continues to grow in Ghana and we're going to use Ghanaians to achieve that. There would be infusion of new expertise and this could affect just one or two people at the top" he said. Meanwhile, JOY-BUSINESS has learnt First-Rand will not acquire the bad debts on the books of Merchant bank as part of the deal to acquire the bank. This could possibly mean that SSNIT will have to work to collect these debts.