State-owned Transmedia Corporation has been dumped by almost all its engineers who left the country to do menial but better-paying jobs in the United Kingdom, it has emerged.
Transmedia Corporation CEO Adonia Mashosho on Monday revealed that the parastatal is left with just one engineer, from a one-time complement of 15.
As reported by source , Mashosho was giving oral evidence before the parliament’s information committee chaired by Marondera legislator Caston Matewu.
He attributed the staff turnover to unattractive perks offered by the public entity which he blamed on sanctions imposed on the country by Western countries. Said Mushosho:
We are losing technical skills in droves; some of them are going to do care work, and engineers going to do care work.
We had about 10 to 15 engineers at Transmedia; we are left with one. A lot of them are going to do menial work.
The permanent secretary for the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Nick Mangwana told the committee that government funding has either been inadequate or never gets disbursed by the ministry. He said:
We have the digitalisation project which was started in 2014 and was supposed to be finished a long time ago but because of funding challenges, we have not made much progress.
Some of our infrastructure is made up of outdated equipment which poses a challenge to radio transmission and television reception and even in the production departments at ZBC.
But we have year after year submitted a budget we believe was suitable for us to leapfrog the broadcasting sector.
One of our challenges is the disbursement itself. The money may never come, particularly for capital expenditure.
Millions of Zimbabweans have left the country over the past two and a half decades following the near-collapse of the economy under the ZANU PF-led Government, with little prospect of recovery in the medium term.
Source Pindula News
