His Excellency Mr. Edgar C Lungu
President of the Republic of Zambia
State House
Lusaka, Zambia

Dear Mr. President,

RE: TIMES OF ZAMBIA MISMANAGEMENT

Firstly of all we would like to state that this letter is unpolitical and not meant to injure any persons, but purely born for merits and demerit.

A bit of background, workers at the Times of Zambia (Times Printpak Zambia) have over the past 5 years plus worked under difficult circumstances very often going month before receiving their pay with salary arrears currently standing at 6 month. With no fixed pay date. This has been caused by financial challenges that make it difficult for the organization settle its obligations on time.

The point of this letter is to Highlight the fact that workers and their families are now suffering and nothing is being done about it.

We as worker feel that MISMANAGEMENT, NEGLIGENCE , INCOMPETENCE and LACK OF WILL to see that the organisation is run viably is slowly leading the Times of Zambia to dooms day.

Note that the Times is a perfectly Viable brand with an annual turnover of over K80 million.

The challenges are well know internally but because of political reasons there i always attempt to hide these challenges by the political appoints especially in the CEO position, who fear that if the tell there master about the challenges they will be seen as having failed but this has caused the institution to stagnate and go
deeper and deep into problems. This hiding of the organisations problem and the suffering of employees will one day explode in the faces of the owners of the company (government).

The situation has not been helped by the fact that there has been no broad of director for a very long time, the defector sole board member the PS has not helped matter infant he has made things worse by not demanding commercial performance from the current CEO (Beston Ngonga) who we believe is his relative but that does not matter as long as he performs. What shocks us is the fact that the PS is also the immediate past CEO of the Times under whose regime these challenges began and we would assume that him being aware of these challenges would quick help mount a solution for us.

Further, the PS has gone at length to distance him self from the problems of Times yet he draws a directors fee for the firms every Quarter. when ask he deflects the problems to the rubber stamp organisation IDC (Industrial Development Cooperation) as the ones in-change yet he is the current broad chairman . The PS (Mr Malama )
has also ensure that the Poor Minster of information and broadcasting (Kampamba Mulenga) does not step a foot at the Times offices , we pity her and implore her to be more assertive in her duties and seek answers and solutions instead of dodging and hiding.

IDC who are aware of the in-competencies of the CEO (Beston Ngonga) to turn around a perfectly viable and strong brand ,have done little to nothing to help the plight of the organisation. we challenge the IDC to seat down with Mr. Beston Ngonga- CEO and ask him what steps he has taken to drag the company out of its loss making position? The man lacks a clear vision for the organization. Ask him what tangible targets he has achieved? Nothing, ask where he sees the organization in the next 5 year? He is a good person but NOT the right person
to sort out the troubles of the Times Of Zambia, he is incompetent for the Task at hand.

Our Union movement has been weaken and ever-time we speak, we are labeled as opposition cards so that we are silenced, but please hear our cries our silence will not only kill us but it will leave question in your mind as to why you never reached out, what we seek is not hand-out but accountability and performance by those you have charged to lead us. HELP US

As employees we seek clarity on the Role of the Ministry Information and the Role IDC, we want some to be accountable some to monitor our commercial performance.

We further demand that a new board of director be put in place. We also demand that board re-adversities the position of CEO to get a turn around manager to recover the organisation to commercial viability We also demand a meeting for workers (union) , minister of information, IDC and management to clarify misinformation. We demand that a clear plan and vision for the organisation be put in place and communicated to all. We demand clear plan of how our salary arrears will be cleared and normalization of pay dates.

Yours
Times Of Zambia
Employees

CC
– Vice President

– Minister of Finance

– Minister of Information and broadcasting

– PS- Information and broadcasting

-Minister of Labour and Social Security- Joyce Nonde Simukoko (MP) –

-IDC director general – Mateyo Kaluba

– All media houses

– ZUJ