ZNBC workers protest, demand removal of entire management

ZNBC workers protest, demand removal of entire management

WINDHOEK, Namibia, 02 August 2015 / PRN Africa / -- On 28 July 2015, unionised Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) workers staged a protest at Mass Media Complex, demanding the immediate removal of director general Richard Mwanza and the entire management.




The Post newspaper reported that the angry employees clad in black chanted anti-Mwanza slogans and sang songs denouncing management.




They accused Mwanza of not being transparent in the manner he was handling the institution's affairs. Zambia Union of Broadcasters and other Information Disseminators general secretary Martin Maseka accused ZNBC management of abrogating the collective agreement signed with the employees.




"We are very much disappointed with ZNBC management because they have abrogated our collective agreement which is more less our contract. So, I don't know where they have gotten the power to delete and remove our conditions of service from our collective agreement," Maseka said.


"We need a serious management that can account for the monies being deducted from our members. We have, for example, people who have borrowed from Zambia National Building Society, ZNBC deducts from our members but does not remit to ZNBS and as we speak right now, most of our members have been served with letters from lawyers representing ZNBS." He further accused the ZNBC management of theft by agent.




But Mwanza, in an interview, wondered why the employees were passing a vote of no confidence in him when he and management were aiming to regularise the illegal pension scheme he said had been running for the past 23 years. "We are trying to put things properly. The office of the Auditor General did guide that we have an illegal pension scheme. This has been running for the past 23 years and they are saying legalise it, have an in-house pension scheme so that when employees retire, they get their pension and that is what we are trying to do.




MISA Zambia has been campaigning for the full transformation of ZNBC into a public broadcaster as envisaged by the ZNBC Amendment act under which allow for an independent editorial policy.


SOURCE Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)

Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)


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