M&G boss lives it up, staff suffer Sources claim Media mogul Trevor Ncube has purchased a R10m house while employees at his media houses are not paid on time Dudu Dube and Mthokozisi Dube, The New Age, Johannesburg, 9 October 2015 Disgruntled staffers claim mogul Trevor Ncube continues to live a lavish lifestyle while his media empire is crumbling. Allegations by staffers at the Mail & Guardian include that salaries are paid late and that his Zimbabwe newspapers employees only received part of their August salaries last week. The reports come hot on the heels of claims he recently purchased a R10m house in Hyde Park and a Mercedes-Benz last year. This week the paper announced the appointment of a new editor, Verashni Pillay, following the resignations of editors Angela Quintal and Moshoeshoe Monare in quick succession recently. Strenuous efforts were made this week to obtain the comments of Ncube and CEO Hoosain Karjieker but to no avail. Already, the Mail & Guardian has shrunk its editorial staff from 60 to 41 while Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) in Zimbabwe has ditched more than 30 staffers in the past three months. Some senior journalists, including the science editor, online news editor, three sub-editors and multimedia editor opted for voluntary packages at the Mail & Guardian as the company hit hard times. However, they are yet to receive their severance packages. "More than 20 people have accepted voluntary retrenchment packages but by the end of September most of them were frantically calling, demanding to be paid their package, which amounts to dismissal by subterfuge. "Some have threatened legal and other action if not paid. Some were ultimately paid half and less of their packages with the promise that the rest would be paid soon," a source said. Claims are that when crisis hits hard, the company taps into donor money aimed for the health desk and AmaBhungani. AmaBhungani has reportedly cut ties with the M&G due to non-payment and the publication abusing its donor funding. Ncube did not respond to written questions sent to him on Monday and several telephone calls and messages sent to him while the Mail & Guardian CEO, Hoosain Karjieker, promised to respond but never did. Ncube's Zimbabwe company Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) has also been hit by hard times. AMH runs The Independent, The Standard and Newsday newspapers and is allegedly struggling to pay its workers with staff claiming they only got half their salaries for August last week. In the past three months, AMH has reportedly retrenched nearly half of its staff.The group also used to cover 75% of the workers' medical aid but reduced that to 50% while allowances such as transport, housing and education are now considered a luxury and have been scrapped. "They also cut salaries for managers. For instance, they are no longer paying fees for their children, they stopped paying their DStv subscriptions and they no longer get fuel," the source said. The Bulawayo publication, Southern Eye, was closed. "They pay half salaries all the time. Just last week they were paying half of the August salaries. There were voluntary retrenchments in 2013 and a lot of people took packages," the source said. From: http://tnaepaper.co.za/ -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
