Angry GBC workers fight NMC Boss

Workers of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation are livid over the National Media Commission's (NMC) decision to clear the governing board of the corporation of any wrongdoing.

The GBC workers union had written to the NMC to dissolve the board, accusing it of “micromanaging the affairs of GBC.”

They also accused the board of misappropriating GBC's internally generated funds by “illegally” employing directors without recourse to due process.]

George Sarpong, Executive Secretary of NMC subsequently debunked the claims, saying their investigations proved otherwise.

But the Union in a statement described Mr. Sarpong's comments as scandalous and self-serving.

“The Ghana Broadcasting Corporations Divisional Union of the Public Service Workers Union (PSWU) wishes to exercise its right to a rejoinder to a misguided statement that, the Executive Secretary of the NMC, Mr George Sarpong, wilfully and without compulsion, made on your network on the date above, in reaction to agitations by workers of the state broadcaster.

“But for his scandalous and self-serving effusions, we would have ignored outright his disgraceful attack on the entire workforce of the GBC and the descriptions he sought the whole world to see the Corporations workers. To put it bluntly he, Mr Sarpong is not on top of his job and does not know the gravity of the billowing anger that is building up at the state Broadcaster,” the statement said.

Full statement is below 
GBC UNIONISED WORKERS' RESPONSE TO NMC EXECUTIVE SECRETARY'S EFFUSION ON CITI FM,

The Ghana Broadcasting Corporations Divisional Union of the Public Service Workers Union (PSWU) wishes to exercise its right to a rejoinder to a misguided statement that, the Executive Secretary of the NMC, Mr George Sarpong, wilfully and without compulsion, made on your network on the date above, in reaction to agitations by workers of the state broadcaster.

But for his scandalous and self-serving effusions, we would have ignored outright his disgraceful attack on the entire workforce of the GBC and the descriptions he sought the whole world to see the Corporations workers. To put it bluntly he, Mr Sarpong is not on top of his job and does not know the gravity of the billowing anger that is building up at the state Broadcaster. .

May be a few words of advice to Mr George Sarpong, it will help you greatly when commenting on GBC unionised workers issues to do so in your personal capacity, and not in the name of your office (Nay, we are constrained because we hold that office in high esteem)

Having listened intently to your effusions on Citi-FM, the GBC Unionised workers wish to react to a few statements you got all wrong:

1. That, staff of GBC are agitating, because they are afraid of technological change and D.T.T, that worker who have been on their jobs for 20 to 30 years, without upgrading themselves and learning new things? What an insult and insolence?

• On the broadcasting media landscape in Ghana today, MrSarpong, please, point to us, which house is technically superior to the GBC or can boast of technical engineers than the GBC?  Capacity?  Reach?

• Please, take a stroll through all media houses today and convince the world that you will not find one or two persons who did not have training or a stint with the GBC. To your information the GBC trained its engineers on Digital Broadcast Technology about 6 years ago and further piloted DTT projects in Accra and Kumasi with over 30 channels running since. These projects are being operated and maintained by the “Carpenters and Welders” you so described. Do you know it is the GBC, long before any institution or agency (be they private or public)    who started work towards migration of Analogue TV signal to digital broadcasting in this country?

• Lawyer Sarpong, what is your personal interest in the whole DTT issue that GBC Union has raised the Red flag and even petitioned your office for months now? What relationship do you and some individuals have with the private company that was contracted to supply and install the National Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) Network, vis-a-vis the ruling that your office gave in our Petition on the DTT and other issues? Public Statement of that nature should not be coming from an occupant of that sensitive office.

• As an officer of the Law, Mr Sarpong, do the honourable thing by rendering a public retraction and apology to the good workers of the GBC. We hold this to your conscience.

2. Please, have you read the draft five (5) Year Strategic Plan, that your appointed Board contracted at a cost of several thousand Ghana Cedis.? What about a Scheme of Service that has been kept a secret and a guarded document, that workers of the State Broadcaster, have not set eye on before? A so-called strategic document and scheme which workers were not involved, consulted, educated on, in their formulation?

3. Who is saying GBC workers are afraid of Restructuring – more so when there is a Collective Agreement (CA), the Labour Law and the GBC Act of Establishment?  Staff are ready.

• Mr Sarpong, why shouldn't we be afraid? The GBC with all its challenges today, tell the whole world how much the State Broadcaster has pumped into the running of the NMC under the tenure of this board. A corporation, that is  indebted to almost all its clients and suppliers

• Why shouldn't we be afraid, when the GBC that cannot pay its electricity bills, the Board, in its strategic wisdom and foresight, purchased six SUV's for some Directors of non-core Divisions of the Corporation?

• Why shouldn't we be afraid when the Corporation's fleet of operational vehicles has virtually broken down for various reasons, yet your appointed Board chose to sell off a 4 year old Four Wheel Drive vehicle to its user, contrary to existing directives in the public service against such a practice, at a price far below the market price of an over ten year (10yr) old saloon car?

• Why shouldn't we be afraid? When the current Board, contrary to the Financial Administrations Act, has turned GBC's IGF into a treasure trove that it is dissipating frivolously?

• We have at all times challenge the NMC to put in the public domain the audited accounts of GBC which followed workers agitation. We are not surprise the NMC has not been able to do that because the public will surely not take it kindly with the commission.

• Mr Sarpong, ask your board when was the last time an audit was conducted into GBC's Accounts, we Are very much interested in this question

• What about the rundown of Radio and Television Newsrooms! Where everything up to a pin, is a shred.

• Why shouldn't we be afraid, when we have an omni-present Board in GBC and the nerve centre of this country – the newsroom are without telephone lines, having been discounted because we owe for several years now?

• We workers are afraid, because, your appointed Board by its conduct and scheming is deliberately running down GBC to serve an end.

• Why, shouldn't we be afraid when operational staffs have no dedicated vehicle for mobility and they have to foot certain errands at their own expense.

• For how long will these continue, we are angry and afraid, because newsmen don't have basic recorders, and have to buy (memory cards and chips) for video – recording; Cameras have broken down and left to rot, decrepit computers and the few that are working, have no mouse.

• Mr Sarpong, are you aware that workers of the Corporation are by and large not picked at dawn and many have suffered robbery attacks, to the extent of being knifed? that the Corporation's  drivers have virtually refused weekend operations because overtime is not paid ? that again , just recently, a newsreader closed late at night and there was no vehicle to drop her home and therefore decided to brave the night home, on her own and was knocked down by marauding motor riders  leading to hospitalisation?

4. Mr Sarpong GBC workers are asking you to do us a favour. Please, kindly lead your appointed Board on an excursion to the newsrooms, studios, production offices, and transport and logistics hubs of the GBC to appreciate the “good work” of your appointed Board.

5. You have rightly pointed out that GBC staff are afraid. Yes! Why shouldn't we, when the Board has hired out or sold out (as some claim) our studios to private competitors, when our TV channels have no studio of their own?

6. Mr Executive Secretary, has your appointed Board ever told you that, many news reporters come back from assignment and had to stand on their feet to write and edit their stories and Sounds / Pictures, because there are not furniture in the offices?

7. Why shouldn't we be afraid when scores of GBC retirees have not been paid their benefits, and because of these many have refused to vacate their bungalows and flats, but your appointed Board from the IGF can afford to sit every week and move its sittings from one venue and town to top class hotels across the country at the expense of the GBC, paying themselves sitting allowances and other expenses, which cannot be considered a drain on GBC's resources?

• Workers are afraid, because your Board has employed a number of Directors and Deputies and some category of workers without clearance from the Ministry of Finance and paying these employees from the Corporations IGF, contrary to existing regulations;

• Workers are afraid because the staff seconded from controller and accountant general department (CAGD) to help protect our Leaking  revenue has been frustrated by your board to leave the corporations finance in the hands of the board employee whom government has ask for the termination of his employment.

• Mr Sarpong, we are still afraid because of the overt and direct interference of your appointed Board in day today administration of the GBC; micro-managing the Corporation, engineering staff transfers from strategic offices to be replaced by pliant recruits;

• Has it also come to your notice that under your appointed Board, the Corporation is so broke to the extent that, it has even borrowed from deductions of workers Provident Fund?

8. Workers of GBC are not, the least afraid of any action because we have the truth and reality on our side. As workers of the state broadcaster. We are first and foremost the direct beneficiaries and victims of its fortunes and failures. We take salaries as workers, the Board of GBC are no employees of the GBC, at best they take their salaries elsewhere, we are therefore direct owners of our work,  why shouldn't we take our destinies into our own hands.

• We are saying enough of the Board, NMC, change this Board!!!! Or is the Commission also afraid of changing this Board who is throwing his weight about and behaving as though, he has the NMC in his pocket?

• Mr Executive Secretary, this is the change that should be engaging your attention, because that is the change that the “carpenters and welders” of GBC want and have demanded so far.

• As Unionised workers, we restate our resolve not to work or negotiate or deal with this current Board. We shall only do these with a new Board !!!!!

• Mr George Sarpong, you should therefore stop using the Police to intimidate our Leaders, because that rather infuriates us the more. We are saying take your Board out of GBC. The Corporation is bleeding under this board.

• Much as the Commission has ensured the insulation of state owned Media Houses from governmental control, it should go further, to insulate State owned media Corporations from Board Administrative Interferences.

9. We are assuring Ghanaians of our determination to be law abiding and act strictly within the confines of the Labour Law, our CA and the Constitution of Ghana.

10. We Unionised Workers of GBC today are emancipated, we know our rights and responsibilities to ourselves, the good people of this country and our publics: we have long passed the years of docility, administrative intimidations and succumbing to disrespectful authority:

• Unionised Workers shall remain committed to solidarity forever, because: “When the unions inspiration through the workers blood shall run, there can be no power greater , anywhere beneath the Sun,

• “They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn. But without our brains and muscles not a single wheel could turn, we can break their haughty power; gain our freedom when we learn that the Union makes us strong”.

Thank you.
Samuel   Allotey
S.N.Kevor
(Divisional Chairman) (Local Chairman)
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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana