Woes Beginning of the end?

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Tanzanian media mogul appears to be in trouble due to the global economic crunch, mismanagement at his firms and alleged forays into murky of politics

This year started with anguish and despair among journalists at the Guardian Limited, “the home of great newspapers”, when journalists were sent home on forced leave after they went on a go slow to press for delayed salaries.

Editors were told to remain at their desks and were mandated to recall a few reporters to work with them to ensure the papers were duly published without fail.

This radical action byReginald Mengi was just another manifestation of how deep his business may have been hit by the global economic crunch, which he has always been hard put to admit.

There are also allegations that Mengi was stealing from his own pockets by taking money from his business to sponsor the political ambitions of his colleagues in the fight against corruption. The wage bills at Mengi’s print media outlets, The Guardian Limited and Media Solutions, have been swelling
The susepension of reporters was preceded by massive job cuts at Kulikoni and This Day, both daily papers which were turned into weeklies without proper explanation.

Many reporters lost jobs and others were transferred to The Guardian newsroom only to be caught up in the forced leave saga. There are a series of other events last year attesting that Mengi’s print media empire is in serious financial trouble.

Industry watchers blame Mengi for venturing into passive politics thus engineering the the downfall of his media business and mistreating his workforce. If Mengi had smelt a rat somewhere in the running of his business, he should have followed laid down procedures in dealing with staff.
“To suspend a whole newsroom team at a time is against employment rules and regulations. The act is against human rights and a suppression of journalism,” said the chairperson of Tanzania Union of Journalists (TUJ), Samson Kamalamo.

He says instead of sending people home for demanding their dues, he was should have apologized for the delayed salaries and paid them what he could.

The Trade Union Congress of Tanzania (TUCTA) also damned the decision by The Guardian Limited to send its junior staff on an indefinite holiday. The workers’ umbrella organization termed the suspension of The Guardian newspaper’s reporters unlawful. “TUCTA strongly condemns the move. We see it as not justifiable in any way because the journalists were condemned before being heard,” Secretary General Nicholous Mgaya said.
However, some insiders at management level at The Guardian allege that, the employees somehow brought the punishment on themselves because they did not follow proper industry dispute procedures. instead they staged an illegal go-slow.

“What do you do with a striking group of people in a dangerous environment like ours, other than sending them home while you contemplate your next move?” posed a senior editor at The Guardian, who, like other editors, was not sent home. “I think the management did this in order to prevent destruction of property.”

Another editor confided that it was obvious that their company was hard hit by global economic crunch hence these problems, but there was serious miscommunication between the top management and the staff, leading the go slow.

“There are salary delays everywhere in Dar es Salaam, but effective communication between the management and workers has always saved the day. Not here. They want you to keep quiet even if payday has come and gone.”

Surprisingly, the editors whom the other staff expected to raise voice and challenge the inhuman decision have remained tight-lipped when Mengi gave his matching orders. They were probably grateful that the ‘Tsar’ had allowed them to stay on. They may also have seen it as a good opportunity to weed out people they simply didn’t like irrespective of their professional excellence. That probably explains why some of the suspended reporters have been called back, leaving out the “unwanted”.

Whatever the case, the dire fate of the suspended reporters appears to be  connected with the decision to close down Alasiri and Lete Raha newspapers. Mengi attributed the closure of the two Kiswahili papers to high running costs. But media analysts say what is costing Mengi is his involvement in media wars. As of last year, he had launched two ‘weapons’ agains the competition: Taifa Letu and Sema Usikike, which are in said to be eating deep into his profits.

In interview with ET early December, Mengi indicated his boredom over the sluggish performance of the Guardian company. He was responding to claims that he was giving so much to outsiders while workers at his company went hungry without salaries. “Other companies make profit except The Guardian. I will continue to maintain my philanthropic spirit no matter how hungry those journalists at the Guardian become…..In fact it is their own fault,” he noted.

He further claimed that because it was his money he felt good giving it out. However, he said what disturbed him were the rumours doing rounds that he was collecting advertising revenue for his personal use, leaving the company to survive on circulation revenue alone.

Although Mengi told his employees that even multi-national media companies in America, some as old as 100 years, had succumbed to global economic crunch, he seemed to miss one important point. The companies closed business while in good terms with their employees. They did not suddenly send them away empty-handed.

The Media Council of Tanzania’s Executive Secretary, Kajubi Mukajanga, declined to comment on the issue,. “I have not received any official statement on the matter and cannot react on hearsay,” Mukajanga said.