YONECO FM – a radio station founded and established on the values of advancing and promoting human rights – has found itself on the wrong lane of its core mandate by engaging police officers to stop a vigil its former employees are commencing tomorrow, September 1, to force the management to remit their pension contributions.
Apparently, YONECO FM has not been remitting its workers’ pension contributions, a thing that has seen retrenched reporters and support staff failing to access their money months after their dismissal.
Various efforts by the laid off workers to get what belongs to them has failed to yield the desired results, thus prompting the frustrated lot to resort to a vigil at the station’s headquarters in Zomba.
But on Thursday evening, Officer in Charge for Zomba Police Station called the concerned former employees to a meeting whose purpose was simply to threaten them with unspecified action if they went ahead with the vigil.
A senior police officer who attended the meeting confirmed with Nthanda Times immediately after the meeting that YONECO management is now trying to use law enforcers to intimidate the ex-employees and stop the vigil from taking place.
“We are just coming from a conference call right now where our OC was requesting the guys not to go ahead with the vigils, citing that we do not have the right capacity under the prext that we will also be covering a ministerial function. Surprisingly, a letter of notification of the vigils was sent to us two weeks ago,” said the officer while pleading with this reporter not to reveal his identity.
But one of the organizers of the vigil, Grace Mkwapata, vowed that the vigil will go ahead.
“Nobody is behind the vigils, we are soley fighting for what is ours. As a Human rights organization they should know better. The vigils will commence,” said Mkwapata.
