General News of Thursday, 31 March 2016

Source: starrfmonline.com

GBC staff petition NMC for board’s dissolution

File photo File photo

Staff of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation have petitioned the National Media Commission for the immediate dissolution of their board.

They are accusing the Board Chairman Richard Kwame Asante and some other Board members of engaging in acts and making pronouncements which could collapse the state broadcaster.

In the petition, the GBC union singled out the Chairman of the GBC Board, and Professor Linus Abraham, a member, saying they had lost confidence in them.

The staff contended that Prof. Abraham’s declaration at a staff durbar in February this year that allowances for employees of GBC were bloated, was unfortunate and almost resulted in the picketing of staff at the broadcasting house.

They also accused Prof. Abraham of making a statement to the effect that GBC would collapse, which the union found strange to have come from a board member.

The union expressed anger at the decision by GBC to terminate a media sports contract with a French media company which resulted in GBC paying a penalty of $50,000 when the corporation lacked the basic logistics for employees to work with.

The union also questioned what was accounting for the delay in declaring the proceeds from the collaboration between the GBC and Metropolitan Television (METRO TV) for the coverage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the AFCON 2015.

According to the union, the GBC board had resorted to recruiting top management personnel who were paid from the Internally Generated Fund which is a violation of a directive issued by the Finance Ministry warning against such practices in ministries, departments and agencies.