Beta TV in hot soup!

One of Malawi’s private television stations, Beta TV is on the verge of having its management dragged to court for failure to pay their employees full wages, Malawi24 has established.

The station which satisfies entertainment pleasures through airing blockbuster movies and music videos, is said to have been exploiting employees for partial payment.

Having faithfully served the media house, employees now feel enough is enough thus resorting to various actions.

An employee who has opted for anonymity has confided in this publication on the matter.

Among issues of main concern which he has raised are the marketing director’s poor relationship with the public and the hiring of employees based on relations.

He claims the media outlet owes him over K400,000 in arrears. Ever since his services were hired in October last year, he says he has received his full salary only twice making it hard for him to continue discharging his duties.

The situation has forced other workers to resign, an action he is also thinking of taking should management fail to pay him. The station owes some of his workmates over K500,000 each in arrears.

Beta TV has reportedly been failing commercially, making it unable to generate extra funding. All fingers are pointing at Dan Tambala who is said to have a bad reputation with the public and clients refuse to do business with the Beta.
He is the only member of the marketing team who has survived the chop, while his counterparts were shown the exit door for what management called incompetence. The reality on the ground is, those who were fired lacked material support for their job.

The television has the best equipment for transmission but economic problems make that useless. Director of the institution is Maneno Mtawali, who owns the licence, Bishop Abraham Simama provides funding while Theuns Bester provided the equipment. The management was yet to respond to Malawi24 as we went to press.