Moyo faces uphill ZBC task

via Moyo faces uphill ZBC task – The Zimbabwe Independent by Elias Mambo September 20, 2013

NEW Information minister Jonathan Moyo faces an uphill task of, among other things, rationalising salary scales of senior managers at the troubled and top-heavy ZBC, with 46 managers gobbling up close to US$800 000 in wages, the Zimbabwe Independent has been told.

Sources say Moyo hit the ground running by instructing the managers to come up with a sensible organogram showing what the broadcaster’s new structure should be in an attempt to bridge the gap between the lower and upper employees’ salaries.

“Moyo has ordered a return to the old organisational structure of editor-in-chief, deputy editor and assignments editor, rendering a lot of managers redundant,” said one source.

“The new structure will leave a lot of managers jobless because there was a lot of duplication of roles, for example we have assignments manager, assignments editor, chief producer and bulletins manager playing similar roles,” the source said.

Moyo was not available for comment yesterday. Despite ZBC’s technical insolvency, bankruptcy and outdated infrastructure, investigations show the company is paying its senior managers huge salaries which bear no relationship to market realities while reporters and other staff earn crumbs. It is not clear where the money to pay managers is coming from.

“The least paid manager nets around US$7 000, while general managers get about US$18 000, heads of department around US$14 000 and the highest paid manager more than $20 000. The rest of the employees (reporters and supporting staff) get below US$1 000,” another source said.

However, ZBC public relations manager Sivukile Simango dismissed reports that meetings have been held on this issue.

“As far as I am concerned, we did not have a meeting with the minister and we are not aware of such plans. No manager has been summoned by the minister so we do not know where that talk of restructuring is coming from,” Simango said.

Tensions are simmering within the state broadcaster with senior managers refusing to hand over the inventory list of company property they have, including registration books of the company vehicles, as demanded by the ministry.

Most employees who have gone for four months without salaries have welcomed Moyo’s intervention.

“We are happy that the new minister is likely to bring sanity to ZBC and that the patronage network that has resulted in a newsroom filled with managers and not reporters will come to an end,” said one ZBC reporter.

“The new structure will render most of the managers useless and this is good for us as workers because management gobbles more than half of the salary bill.”