MBC removes ‘drunkard’ head presenter, Bingu off-air
Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) has removed Cosmas Tchale as its Head of Presentation following his drunkenness behaviour, Nyasa Times can reveal.
Tchale, was handed the removal letter from MBC management on Monday the 5th of March 2012.
He has since been moved to a lesser influential position in what is known as the National Development Section and has been replaced Patricia Sundu as Head of Presentation.
In the letter, MBC disclosed to Tchale that he was being demoted because of bad behaviour including drunkenness, late coming to work and use of verbal tirade on fellow employees. He was accused of lacking leadership skills.
According to MBC sources, Tchale is one of Director General Bright Malopa’s blue eyed boys.
Tchale, is the man whose voice you hear in the political propaganda cartoon programme, Makiyolobasi.
Following his participation in Makiyolobasi and coupled with his closeness to Malopa, he was rewarded when he was handed the post of Head of Presentation at MBC on a silver platter.
However, from the word go, staff at MBC expressed reservations at Tchale’s position and many others that were handed out without any competition following the failed merger of MBC radio and television.
About a week ago whilst working as Head of Presentation, Tchale’s mobile phone, twice rang on air when he was reading news bulletin.
Sources say that he was “partly crowdy” when he read the news.
Apart from having a binge drinking problem, Tchale is well known for using his previous position to verbally abuse his fellow employees arguing ‘nobody can touch him at MBC’.
Mutharika off-air
In a related development, there was drama on MBC television on Sunday night when MBC kept on taking off-air President Bingu wa Mutharika’s speech during the re-broadcasting of his earlier official function when he opened the Malowa-Goliati-Chiperoni road now named after Mutharika himself.
A professional television technician with the technical know-how skills told Nyasa Times that when he watched the President’s speech being cut-off air like that, he thought that was the worst mistake a broadcaster would dream of experiencing on air.
“It kept on cutting every now and then. This did not even spare Mutharika’s speech and at some point he disappeared from air for about 5 minutes and the television went blank. From nowhere, a very unrelated presidential function held at Kamuzu Stadium came on air played for about another 5 minutes before the Mutharika speech at Goliati came back. It was total chaos,” he said.
The story has been confirmed by many other viewers of MBC TV. As usual, there was no apology to viewers by the state controlled station.
The technician argued that basing on his experience, the MBC television crew may have used a recycled tape to record Mutharika’s function earlier in the day.
This is not the first time that a presidential function especially those to do with Mutharika have gone haywire on MBC Television.
About a month ago, MBC Television failed to broadcast a live presidential address to the nation from Sanjika Palace in Blantyre and people ended up listening to Mutharika on radio. There was no apology from MBC TV although people were glued to the screens to watch him live addressing the nation.
MBC only managed to air the re-broadcast on the nation address later.
Almost a week later during the official opening of the Bangula-Nsanje road, MBC also went off-air for about 7 minutes when Transport Minister Sidik Mia was speaking to invite President Mutharika to address the gathering and transmission was only restored when Mutharika was already in the middle of his speech.
During the single party rule of former late President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, many people were arrested or fired from their jobs for being irresponsible on air at the national broadcaster.
However despite these technical errors that continue to happen at MBC even with Mutharika’s speeches, nobody has been suspended or lost their jobs.
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