Earlier last week a TV news presenter for KBN News, a Zambian news network, interrupted a live broadcast claiming that himself and his colleagues haven’t received their wages from the network.
Careers are stressful, work can get on top of you, competition with your colleagues, having to get up at the crack of dawn every morning. But if you love what you do all those stresses can wash away. It helps if you get paid though. No one wants to be an unpaid intern forever. Work is long and stressful and everyone deserves to be paid fairly. Hell, even Spain is set to trial a four day week.
Well, if you think you’re being treated unfairly at work, take a page out of this Zambian TV news presenter’s book.
In the middle of reporting the top stories of the day to viewers of KBN News, Kabinda Kalimina, halted his own live broadcast, levying accusations against the station about a failure to pay himself and his colleagues.
“Away from the news, ladies and gentlemen, we are human beings. We have to get paid,” announced Mr Kalimina, before decrying the lack of pay, repeating the line “We haven’t been paid.”
“Unfortunately, on KBN we haven’t been paid… Sharon and everyone else hasn’t been paid, including myself.” he continued.
It wasn’t long before the live feed from the video was cut to the opening montage footage of the news channel.
Following the statement, the network and it’s CEO Kennedy K Mambwe expressed their feelings about the anchor in their own statement on the channel’s official facebook page.
Mambwe referred to Kalimina’s actions as “Drunken Behaviour” and “one-night stunt of fame,” strongly condemning the conduct of the anchor.
However, The chief did not explicitly address the claims made by Kalimina about the lack of pay. He did go on to add that the organisation “has very well established grievance procedures for all members of staff through which they can channel their complaints.”
“Therefore, last night’s behaviour by Kabinda Kalimina is out of character and does not represent who we are as a station,” he continued. As a result, investigation is currently underway by management to determine how “how a drunken part-time presenter” found himself on air unabated. Following that disciplinary action will be taken against anyone who may have been a party to Kalimina.
Kalamina has since defended his actions, stating that “Yes I did that on live TV. Just because most journalists are scared to speak out, doesn’t mean journalists shouldn’t speak out.”
