Richie Romanus|31 October 2018
Automatic employment for all Civil Engineering graduates from the Cross River State University of Technology (CRUTECH). Good gesture. I wish same gesture can be granted to casual staff (artiste) of the Cross River Broadcasting Corporation (CRBC), Calabar.
Do you know that 80% of the staff of the News and Current Affairs department, which has Reportorial, Editorial and Current Affairs units is made of casual staff? Are you aware that, they may be no news if these category of people stay away from work for oneday?
Are you aware that the station is most likely to go off air if the casual workers in the engineering department and programmes department decide to go on strike? Who will power the station? Who will be at the control unit? Who will be the vision mixers? Who will operate the studio cameras? Who will anchor most of the TV and Radio programmes?
Do you even know that most of the casual workers am talking about have been baring that nomenclature for years now with a promise that they will be employed someday? As a matter of fact, I know about 5 of them that have been in CRBC for almost 15 years with a monthly stipend of 12 and 10,000. How will a family man survive with such an amount with his family?
Have you bordered to ask why the station seems to be losing its best hands on a daily basis? From Margaret Agada, Lydia Okon, Wofai Samuel, Solomon Ofem, Koffi Battels, MaryAnn Okon, Duke Emmanuel, Solo Mourinho, Chuma Nnoli, Helen Brian, Emmanuel Nyamgul, Diana Mary, Effion Ekpenyong, Victor Ekpo Ita who is currently the GM of one of the new stations and most recently Nten Ekpang etc? They all left because the State and Station did not value them. As a matter of fact, the highest each of them got as monthly stipend was 15,000.
Today, it is as though the station doesn't exist because of the emergence of other stations. The station has literally loss it's fan base to these new stations yet 70% of the OAPs of these stations were formerly with CRBC.
My take is that, CRBC still have a major comparative advantage over all the new stations in Calabar because of the TV component. Government must take advantage of this by giving automatic employment to every artist in CRBC. This will not only encourage them to work a little more harder but will also attract young Cross Riverians who have interest in mass communication and journalism.
One thing nobody will take away from CRBC is that, the station has groomed and discovered several stars who are competing favorably with their peers out there.
CRBC still got a lot to offer. It must not be allowed to die.
Richard Romanus is a member of the Cross River State Transport Regulatory Agency (CTRA)
