By Mustapha Kamara
Staff of the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation have urged the country’s anti-corruption commission to investigate their Director General, Gbanabone Hallowel, whose four-year mandate ended in September.
The aggrieved employees laid down their tools and blamed their boss for “mismanagement and one who has carried out other dubious activities all through his four years in office.”
They called on the ACC to investigate all financial documents of the corporation over the years, alleging that a lot of mismanagement occurred under the leadership of the DG.
According to Reginald Strasser-King, a senior staff at the broadcaster, they had protested because they wanted to discourage any thoughts of extending Hallowel’s tenure of office, adding: “we want him to be replaced with a more professional and qualified individual immediately”.
He said they wanted someone who would bring development and improvement at SLBC. “As staff of the country’s national TV, we are still faced with lots and lots of challenges which are affecting our output and that of the station in general,” Strasser-King said.
Hallowel denied all allegations against him insisting he had developed the SLBC to meet international standards.
Speaking to Politico in his office, he said he was still working because the government had extended his tenure of office, adding that he had not been asked yet to step down by his appointer.
He claimed that his staff had been instigated by “a few Sierra Leoneans” who thought he was incompetent and should not be given another term in office.
“Everybody knows that the corporation is faced with challenges but the most important thing is that we are doing our best to run programmes on different stations in Freetown and SLBC stations across the country,” he said.
© Politico 04/11/14
