Staff Reporter
Recent plans by Unions under the name Joint Trade Union, JTU to sack the management of Akwa Ibom Broadcasting Corporation, AKBC recently met a brick wall
The alleged plans failed following the leaking of the information by a member of the JTU after a secret meeting which led top government functionaries to step in and plead with the Union to put on hold the sack.
JTU is an umbrella for unions operating in AKBC.
The plan is part of the reason the Director General, DG of the AKBC, Pastor Anietie Ukpe resigned. Other reasons according to our findings are that the DG believes he was being frustrated by the powers that be at the government house not allowing him to see the governor and he may have ran out of ideas to move the station forward plus the non availability of funds according to some of those he confided in.’
Surprisingly, how can a DG wants to see the governor directly when there is a supervising ministry
It is on record that Mr Udom Emmanuel at a time released N100m and many more millions of naira to AKBC directly and that same year the Corporation made some millions of Naira and nothing to show for it according to an inside source.
The source who confided in Starwitness Newspaper said that the state government has funded the station enough but wondered why the station whose income does not go to government purse and, salaries paid by government should complain of the lack of funds.
According to the state governor, Pastor Umo Eno, in a recent media parlay with journalists in Uyo, said that the resignation of Pastor Ukpe is not the solution to the alleged problems of the AKBC.
From findings, another problem of the place is how the top management believes in gossips and hearsay rather than focus on the realities of the Corporation.
You may want to ask, how a station without content draw patronage from advertisers.. The staff have always been asked to use their money and tools to to get content and if it is done no refunds are made.
As at the time of this report, AKBC owes millions of Naira to diesel suppliers as one of them recently went to the Udoma Udoma office of the station to protest.
It is time for the state government to look into the activities of AKBC and appoint a Board to run its affairs as well as audit its account.
However, the move of the sack according to investigation follows the lack of interest of the management to bring back the glory of the station and the mandate to which the station was setup by government
After several meetings with the management without improvement, reports say the Union is sad that a management team recently went on a private trip Lagos using the funds of AKBC amounting to about one million naira in two weeks when the station had no money to buy diesel to enable it transmit for almost one week.
The findings also show that staff of the Corporation are not happy that despite huge government funding, AKBC has not been able to provide minor tools to help staff do their work effectively.
The move according to some members of the union was to serve the station from eminent collapse adding that they are still appealing to the state government to wade into the issue.
‘”It is sad that our station does not have editing equipment to edit our programmes. Not even a microphone to use and we use our personal phones to do the job or go to private studios and we pay from our private purse. Most professional who visit the station always commend us for using nothing to make something”” a staff lamented
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The union alleged that contracts are given without due process and as a result most of the contractors have gone away with millions of naira without trace and efforts to recover the said amount are not made or made without follow-up.
“”It is noted that the intercom lines installed has never functioned since inception, and the studio equipment for radio and television installed got bad within six months and the contractor absconded.
The magic done by staff of the corporation using bare hands and obsolete equipment is what is sustaining the station on air”” a staff said.
In a case, report says about N30m given by immediate past administration for the purchase of UPS for the TV transmitter room was taken away by an Italian and no one can trace him till today but if traced no has a concrete information as to what is happening. This, they say is because of the nonchalant attitude of the management of AKBC
The people noted that former AKBC staff are managing private stations in Akwa Ibom and beyond following the experience garnered while they were in AKBC.
They mention specifically Comfort FM managed by Eddy Ekenyong noting that Comfort Fm has never one day gone off air because of technical issues or diesel but AKBC funded by government runs epileptic broadcasting.
Findings also show that some of the top management staff spend thousands of naira on telephone calls, spend much money on petrol and diesel for their cars and homes at the expense of AKBC whereas permanent artists who do the bulk of work in AKBC are paid N10,000.00 only monthly and have not collected the amount for the past one year
AKBC transmitting station houses big snakes because of the bushy environment.
The staff appealed to government to release the vehicle it promised the Corporation since after the #ENDSAS saga
