The Managing Director of Heritage Bank Plc, Ifie Sekibo, has emphasized the need for capacity building among employees of financial institutions for improved operations.
He made this remark at a 3-day yearly Internal Control and Audit Conference organised by the bank in Lagos.
According to the banker, training acquired personally and arranged by corporate organisations to individuals is useful not only to the person but key to the corporation’s growth.
Sekibo, while advising Heritage Bank’s employees participating at the conference to be committed to upholding integrity, as their job qualities define each person’s character, stressed the need for the bank’s staff to cultivate savings culture for their future, whilst noting that the fate of every staff of the institution is tied together by “this purpose called Heritage Bank.”
Speaking earlier, the bank’s Chief Audit Executive, Prince Akamadu, said that conference was organized for officers of the bank responsible for internal control and audit across the country to enable them review their activities on yearly basis.
He said the conference was also an avenue where the executive management of the bank tell the officers the expectations they want from internal control and audit.
Akamadu also said they used the opportunity to review their achievements in internal control and audit throughout the year and what their challenges had been and what could be done to improve their operations in the future.
In addition, he pointed out that the conference was also a forum where the internal control and audit officers of the bank from all the regions of the country get first hand feedbacks from executive management about what the bank is doing, the direction of the bank and the expectations of the management.
He said the conference had helped, over the years, to enhance the operations of the bank, adding that “we churn out policies and new procedures every time and sometime application could be a challenge and also at a forum like this, control officers exchanged ideas on how they work in their different regions to get results.”
“So when they get back to their bases, they are able to apply what they had learnt to improve operations for the overall benefit of the bank”, Akamadu added.
Some of the primary issues critically discussed and analysed at the annual conference were aimed at ensuring adherence to corporate governance across board, how to attain free fraud transactions, faster and seamless transactions, deepen synergy amongst Internal Control Unit (ICU), Audit and other units, to ensure workable and functional system, cost cutting, due diligence in the process of tickets, cohesion in the working processes amongst other key issues.
