Just like many other media outifts, all is not well with Kumasi based Kapital Radio.
Barely 2 weeks since the station bounced back on air after being shut down by the National Communications Authority (NCA) for violating various aspects of the Electronics Communications Act (2009), Act 775, reliable information available to Ghana’s Hub For Pop Culture And Urban Entertainment News – www.nydjlive.com, indicates a number of staff of the station are not happy and are on their way out of the radio station.
This development, we gather, is as a result of tempers flying at a recent meeting where on air staff who had not been paid for over 7 months were asked to double as marketing executives with targets to make each month.
According to a staff who spoke to us on anonymity, what broke the camel’s back was the fact that they were asked to work so the monies that would be generated would be used to pay the debt owed the National Communication Authority.
“Would you believe nothing was said of the salary arrears owed us or any plans to pay us going forward until we asked? Management says there’s no money and that we should work to pay the debt owed NCA. I mean how long can we sacrifice our lives paying for debts? How do we also survive as staff since would not be paid? Annoyingly, someone said he was doing us a favour by giving us the platform and that ongoing staff including administrative staff would be put on targets”, embittered staff said.
Although we gather a high number of the staff are on peeved and are their way out, our source tells us that Nana Boakye Yiadom (NBY), a long serving programmes manager of the station has vowed not to step foot at the premise again.
In September 2017, the National Communications Authority in a press release mentioned among other radio stations that it had revoked the operational license of Imperial Broadcasting (Kapital Radio) for defaulting to renew its licence.
“Twenty‐one (21) FM broadcasting stations have had their authorizations revoked completely since their authorizations had expired over several years and were operating illegally. They had also failed to apply for renewal 3 months before expiry of existing Authorization and as stipulated in their Authorization. The FM broadcasting stations in question also did not respond to a notice the NCA sent to them to regularize their operations earlier this year.”
Established in 1997, Kapital Radio which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary remained a market leader among the English-speaking community in the Ashanti Region until it had stiff competition from others.
The media outfit has since its inception trained a tall list of excellent radio broadcasters.
