MBC already paid disgruntled employees
The MBC employees who on Wednesday last week held a vigil demanding their salaries had already pocketed part of their perks, Nyasa Times has learnt.
The employees who were once redeployed to other government institution before being reinstated by the High Court, and had not been paid their wages since September last year, staged a vigil, chanting songs, mocking the administration while carrying placards demonstrating their anger.
However, one of the public broadcaster’s top official revealed to Nyasa Timesthat, the station under the current leadership of Benson Tembo has started sorting out the employees by paying them a five-month salary.
“As management, we agreed to pay them some of the money and they pocketed their salaries of five months, what is remaining is to give them the balance, which we are processing right now. Only that some of them owe the station some money in form of loans, so w have deduct that before paying the final pay,” disclosed the official.
The official said the radio station was not moved by the vigil the employees staged, arguing “they had a right to do so though they could have opted for another way to sort things out”.
He added that currently the administration was in the process of paying the disgruntled employees who were demonstrating around the MBC head offices at Chichiri in Blantyre.
The victimized employees convened a meeting where, among other issues, they agreed to hold a vigil apart from seeking legal assistance for contempt of court.
And in interview one of the workers union’s members confirmed to have met to deliberate on unpaid employees who were being victimized by Bright Malopa’s administration.
“After the High Court stopped redeployment under so called MBC and TVM merger, the management was ordered to reinstate us until constitution review on matter. However, since that time up to date we have not been paid our salaries. I don’t know how they are expecting us to survive without a pay.
“This is contempt of court because we are employees of MBC just as everyone else and we have to be paid our dues. We have agreed to stage a protest and take up the Office of President and Cabinet (OPC) and see what will be the outcome,” said the Union member.
