Mediamax Ltd, a media house co-owned by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto is letting go of employees above the age of 60.
The DSM Place based media house on Monday sent packing senior editors after a retirement policy came into play.
According to a local news source, the policy is meant to cut costs across board. At least 20 people were retrenched on Monday, 13 of them came from the print division.
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Among those who will no longer work at the media house include People Daily Quality and Training Editor Chris Odwesso and the paper’s chief photographic editor Hudson Wainaina.
Also leaving is pre-press operations coordinator Peter Kibaba. Others, Kahawa Tungu understands, are based at the printing press unit located along Mombasa Road.
The decision made by the board is said to have blindsided the employees who asked for their pension or payment of gratuity.
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They were however asked to await the processing processing of their pension and this month’s salary.
“There was a push that they get gratuity while some sought to be retained on contract. But come Monday, they were told last Friday was their last working day,” a senior employee is quoted by the blog.
Apart from the retrenching, afternoon tea has also been withdrawn as airtime tokens. Senior editors will no longer have access to the Star, Standard, Daily Nation and Business Daily newspapers.
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The cuts have been attributed to the recent withdrawal of advertising especially from SportPesa and other major betting companies.
Even as harsh financial times persist, the media house in August relaunch their leading TV brand, K24.
“K24 relaunch is a strategic response to the market needs in a disruptive digital era that requires injection of creative execution and delivering content on demand to a younger and sophisticated audience.
Our goal is to deliver content in real time, shift from traditional programming style and push more videos,” said Mediamax acting Chief Executive Officer Ken Ngaruiya.
Apart from K24, the Mediamax stable also includes People Daily newspaper and vernacular stations namely: Kameme TV, Kameme FM, Emoo Fm, Mayian FM, Meru FM and Msenangu FM.
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