Malawi’s Radio Islam director succumbs to pressure: Pays back workers’salary
Malawi’s Radio Islam director Muhammad Osman on Wednesday paid back unconditionally all the money he instructed his administrator Fatima Jafali to deduct from the workers’ salaries for failing to sign the log book.
Inside sources told Nyasa Times that the management had succumbed to the pressure from angry workers who stormed the executive director’s office demanding an explanation on the deductions.
Osman a Sudanese national on Tuesday instructed the salary cuts of all workers who were not signing in the log book he introduced on his own three months ago.
This led the workers to boycott receiving the salaries until they established the rationale of the directive.
“We already get meager salaries here to for the management to cut it without our prior knowledge is an insult. We don’t know what our boss thinks of us while he himself who also usually come late, take home a huge amount of money tax free.”
But inside sources told Nyasa Times that the executive director was forced to rescind the decision after workers including a learned Muslim clerk, Sheikh Zaid who works at the radio, challenged him to produce evidence that the workers had agreed that will have their salaries cut once they forget to sign in the log book.
“Feeling defeated he instructed the administrator to pay back our money and postponed the meeting on the log book. The best we are demanding from him is that he should go. He is mistreating us.”
He is also on record of swearing at journalists in the newsroom Wednesday over a story on Nyasa Times which reported that workers abandoned their salaries.
Osman hit the headlines three years ago when the Malawi’s local newspaper put him on the limelight after he hit and injured a watchman at the radio station, Tony Lihonga with a chair.
Recent reports indicated that Anti-Corruption Bureau is planning to launch an investigation into the issue in which he gave the watchman Lihonga MK100, 000 preventing him from reporting him to police.
In 2006 Osman was also in the news after he suspended then Head of News and Current Affairs department Amadu Rashid Mapila who challenged his style of administration when he (Osman) was acting on behalf of the then Director Hubbudin Yahaya who was on holiday.
Last month (September) Osman also suspended for two weeks the current Head of News and Current Affairs department Lameck Masina for allegedly being rude to him during one of meetings.
Recently he has been at loggerheads with former general secretary of Muslims Association of Malawi Nordeen Kaondo who operates a restaurant below Radio Islam’s studios over parking space which is at a doorstep of Kaondo’s restaurant.
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