Wednesday, November 17, 2021 - 09:49

After receiving over £14 MILLION GBC’s general manager says DON’T EXPECT US TO DELIVER MORE

The migration of GBC from dilapidated studios at Broadcasting House to its new luxury hotel at South Jumpers Bastion has raised many eyebrows in the community. After a series of insipid relaunches, renovations, re-brandings and aborted attempts at relocations, the definitive resettlement was accomplished in August.

An exultant CEO Gerald Teuma heralded the providential tidings from his multi-million pound, state-of-the-art TV headquarters. Beaming with smug self-satisfaction he said that “despite the fact that it has cost a significant amount of money, it would not be as much as you would expect.”
He explained that the total cost of the fit-out and redesign of the building amounted to £3.7m of which GBC had contributed £700,000, so the hit to government coffers had ‘only’ been £3m. The building has been rented from the developer at a cost of £300k a year in rent. But this does not tell the true story of direct public funding at GBC.
Teuma is an old hand at this game and his opening message in tried and tested pre-emptive tactic tradition was to warn the public not to expect more.
“We cannot deliver more than what we did, we are maxed out,” further stating that the operational budget has not increased and neither has the number of staff.
Value for money?
He also vowed that the overall GBC product, both radio and TV will improve.
That remains to be seen. For now, as Panorama already pointed out, all we have seen is a background panel of images and a person reading the news standing up and then sitting down. Let us examine more closely where the broadcasting monopoly is today: one thing is Teuma’s optimistic narrative, and quite another the reality of GBC television output. Do the CEOs claims stand up to scrutiny? The key question is, does it deliver value for money?
Previous manager did better with shoestring budget
GBC staff is growing all the time. It has become an unmanageable leviathan sucking the udders of the state dry especially in the past decade. The trickle of staff vacancies advertised is constant. They must now have close to 100 employees, almost two thirds more than during George Valarino’s time as general manager, when GBC provided a similar service, in some respects superior, with one major difference. He did it with a shoestring budget.
CONTINUES TOMORROW