How Mpai fell

| Monday March 5, 2012 00:00

 

Since the mysterious resignation of the Managing Director of one of the biggest local banks, Barclays Bank Botswana, on Wednesday last week, the corporate world has been seized with anxiety as they try to find the answer to a curious question: Did Mpai jump or he was pushed?

Did Mpai jump because they were going to push him anyway, or did they push him because he was going to jump anyway? Or put a little differently, did Mpai jump when they were about to push him, or did they push him when he was about to jump?

Whatever the case might be, the point is that the truth is somewhere in between. According to sources, senior officials from Barclays global HQ, flew into Gaborone to deliver something to the MD of the Botswana branch. They delivered news, and not good news. The long and short of it is that whenever these powerful emissaries would leave Gaborone, Mpai would not be MD any more. End of story.

Mpai was the victim of circumstances as varied as they were vicious; a lethal confluence of misfortunes.

One, Mpai inherited a dysfunctional industrial relations structure that had given birth to an acerbic environment between management and staff and management and union leaders. Secondly, Barclays from years before had become a hotbed of unethical conduct that had permeated to a level where decisions were made on nothing but the personal considerations of a few, largely male, members of senior management.

Above all stood the bosses abroad who demanded profits, and perhaps even watched matters with a suspicious eye. One of the largest banks in the country had been facing a scandal-riddled management that forced its last MD, a Motswana, out; yet they felt the pressure to keep a local MD to satisfy a sceptical public that indeed they have their hearts in this country. Lastly Mpai, came undone by the force of his own questionable management style.

All these evils combined to create a cocktail that, sources say, almost rendered Mpai's management stint stillborn, unless he completely reversed the legacy of his predecessors.

In the two years following the introduction of a performance management system (PMS) at Barclays, the bank's management disposed of a substantial number of employees. However, many of the former employees of the bank say while PMS may have been the reason for the sacking of hundreds of them, it was not the real reason.

To understand the way Barclays works, even locally, you have to understand how it works internationally, critics say. The 10th largest bank in the world is an international juggernaut headquartered at 1 Churchill Place, London, E14 5HP, United Kingdom. It is not a small establishment. At the top sits the Chairman of Barclays PLC, AP Agius, and his team, deputy Michael Rake, CEO Robert Edward Diamond Jr., Finance Director Christopher Lucas and General Counsel Mark Harding.

A man like Mpai may oversee one of the most profitable of Barclay's African enterprises, but in the larger scheme of things, he has the bosses' demands to meet. The shareholders at Barclays, like all businesses owners, demand profits. Just this past year, the bank that is known for posting healthy figures for its shareholders reported that it had made P331 million over the last six months of the past financial year. Lower operating costs and reduced default rates on loans pushed Barclays Bank's profit before tax 26 percent higher to P331 million for the first six months of last year.

Meanwhile, the bank saw net interest income flat at P494 million, reflecting small movements on the customer balance sheet in the first half of the year. As The Monitor's sister publication reported last year, loans and advances to customers improved by two percent to P5.7 billion while deposits due to customers declined by one percent to P9.2 billion, Mmegi said.

On or about 2007, the bank introduced PMS primarily to deal with employee productivity, according to official reports. Explaining this to staff in a letter dated November 7, 2007, Human Resources business partner Joy-Marie Marebole said: 'The performance management process involves continued review of staff performance. Emphasis is placed on what has been achieved and how we have achieved our objectives in line with the guiding principles.'

However, former employees say PMS came to be used for much more nefarious objectives - to weed out unwanted elements. 'Unwanted elements came in three types - the old ladies who had been working at the bank for many years and were now no longer seen as beautiful enough for the boys there; the noisy union leaders who were complaining about this and that; and generally staff who had been working at the bank for decades and were approaching their retirement age and would be due for severance packages,' one of them alleged.

Speaking to The Monitor, four former staff members of Barclay Botswana characterised the bank as a hotbed of sexual abuse where the primary value of female employees, at least to the big men who value these things there, is their looks and malleability to senior management's sexual advances. Therefore, the former employees allege, the local bank's interpretation of PMS was largely used as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone - 'manage out' unattractive or 'unresponsive' female employees and eliminate 'unhelpful' activist male employees; push profits up by cutting down on severance packages by sacking veterans approaching costly retirement soon.

The Monitor investigations reveal that a substantial number of staff sacked since the introduction of PMS were of long service cadre with at least 10 years experience and due for substantial retirement benefits. The Monitor has affidavits of the recent case against the bank that was launched by its former managers sacked over PMS.

Until recently, the bank was engaged in a tussle with staff members over its disciplinary processes. Cecilia G.

Modise, Chakalisa Ronald Phuthego, Beauty Thaga, Botho Disang, Josephine Morule and Sinikiwe Masalila all wanted the bank prevented from proceeding with the process, arguing that they were being victimised for their involvement in trade union activities. Morule and Masalila each had 27 years experience while Chalalisa had 22 years, giving impetus to critics' view that Barclays' victimisation programme is custom made to weed out those who would cost the company more in severance packages if they left procedurally.

Which brings us to Mpai. Mpai inherited from his predecessors a host of unpalatables, among them PMS and a hostile relationship between the bank and the workers' union. Sometime in early 2009, Mpai sat down to adjudicate yet another disciplinary hearing for yet another employee charged with poor work performance. The offence? 'Poor work performance as a result of the employee's own negligence or carelessness,' said the charge sheet. The Monitor is in possession of the minutes of that hearing that reveal a heavy hand on the defendant and scolding of the defendant's representative.

Except for occasionally seeking clarification on this or that point, Mpai largely sat back, leaving the work to his lieutenants in senior bank officials.

The employee has since been dismissed while attempts to get a comment from the bank's communication unit have proved futile. In the meantime at the bank, staff members discovered an indiscretion Mpai had allegedly committed and informed union leaders and the unionists used this to force him out. The Monitor spoke to a number of staff members who spoke of the presence of skeletons in Mpai's closet.

'Unless he dealt with the matters concerning the victimisation of workers within the bank, he was always going to leave,' said one. Sources maintain that Mpai fell on his own sword. Maybe he did. Maybe he was pushed on his own sword. Whatever the case it was, it is inconsequential to the giant that is Barclays Bank.