At a time when supposedly wealthier media houses that have made money and thrived in the Ugandan market for decades are announcing huge salary cuts and other cost-saving interventions while not ruling future legal redundancies for some non-essential employees, NBS CEO Kin Kariisa has written to his Next Media employees assuring them that nobody is going to be affected in any way no matter how long the COVID19 lock down lasts.
The versatile youthful private sector leader used the Labor Day 1st May to convey the good news to his employees in an internal staff memo. Saying he can’t take their work and sacrifice to continue working through this difficult period for granted, Kariisa admits COVID has made the situation look synonymous with business unusual but that doesn’t take away his obligation to treat his Media Group employees humanely. That this determination to keep everybody working and 100% earning their salary without any of those very demoralizing salary cuts is reflective of Next Media Group’s obligation to keep the people of Uganda informed through this period of great uncertainty which peddlers of fake news can potentially take advantage of.
He then delivers the best news that naturally must have arrayed fears of all his Group employees thus: “To all of us as a whole, be at peace. Your jobs with us, as well as your salaries, will all remain [as] in your respective contracts. This also applies to your benefits. Continue to be safe and let’s keep winning.” At Next Media, employees are on top of comparatively comfortable salaries entitled to other benefits that colleagues in other media houses can only fantasize about (but detailing them & how much they cost the company can be story for another day).
BAD NEWS ELSEWHERE
In comparison to Kin Kariisa’s very reassuring memo, Vision Group which is among Uganda’s oldest, wealthiest and most profitable media businesses has already closed down parts of the business condemning many young people to an extremely very uncertain future. For instance hundreds of young people who directly and indirectly lived off Kampala Sun, Orumuri, Etop and Rupiny have been home for more than a month and for many of them, it’s uncertain if MD Robert Kabushenga will ever call them back.
Yet that isn’t the only bad news the state-owned Vision Group has delivered to its hitherto very loyal employees consequent to the Coronavirus pandemic. Barely two days ago, their otherwise very excellent MD Robert Kabushenga outed a one page memo urging staff to accept “salary reduction” that will take effect May. Each employee, including people in top management positions, is to lose between 40% and 60% of their pre-COVID gross salaries. Very traumatizing as that news must have been, in the same memo Mr. Kabushenga notifies Group employees to be prepared for more diminished benefits as “further measures are still being discussed and staff will be notified accordingly.” He justifies the measures as necessary to enable one of Africa’s most successful state-owned media outlets “navigate the difficult market.”
Speaking during today Saturday’s Capital Gang edition, experienced media practitioner Semujju Nganda observed that with the virus eating away so much into Uganda’s media market leader Vision Group, scribes practicing elsewhere should only brace themselves for much worse times. We can’t imagine what must be running through the mind of prolific broadcasting journalist Joseph Sabiiti who voluntarily quit his well-paying job at NBS only to end up accepting work at Vision Group’s struggling Urban TV whose own very existence is as uncertain as the general picture painted by MD Robert Kabushenga’s latest staff memo rationalizing salary cuts.
Similarly, the parent Nation Media Group Kenya of which Uganda’s Daily Monitor, Kfm & NTV belong has announced cost-saving interventions that will see each of the employees lose between 5% and 35% per month of their pre-COVID salary just to enable the business limp through this difficult COVID19 period. In an elaborate memo dated Wednesday 29th April, Group CEO Stephen Gitagama explains the pay cut decision will be reviewable every after three months implying even if treatment and vaccine were discovered tomorrow and COVID ceased being the big problem it has become so far, the NMG employees won’t have back their full salary at least up to August. The cost-saving intervention undertaken by NMG Kenya naturally means the same will have to be replicated for the Group’s Ugandan media operations (naturally) to the detriment of our colleagues plying their trade under Daily Monitor, NTV, Kfm, Ddembe fm, Nation Courier and even the Enyanda for sports.
The bigger question many will be asking themselves is where does Kin Kariisa, whose Next Media-owned NBS TV started barely 12 years ago, get the resources and largeness of the heart to continue generously treating his employees at a time supposedly larger and wealthier media empires can’t do as much? The answer could be embedded somewhere in his long term dream of seeing Next Media consolidate itself as the most authoritative and most influential media channel not only in Uganda but the whole of East Africa. To realize such an ambitious dream, the owners of the business have to tame their greed and appetite for too much dividend to ensure the company doesn’t lose some of the best talent it has. This could be the way Kin Kariisa manages maintaining all this generosity towards his staff, something his fellow media CEOs can only fantasize about.
Kin Kariisa’s message of hope assuring Next Media Group employees that no salary cuts are going to be occasioned any time soon. In comparison below are the memos his fellow CEOs for Vision Group and Nation Media have come up with so far naturally causing their employees to become more worried with job-related stresses than with COVID19 itself
Credit: mulengeranews.com
