KTN, Standard Staff Yet To Receive Salaries- Insider

A crisis is brewing at the Standard Media Group (SMG) as alleged financial constraints are seeing staff experience delays in receiving their monthly salaries.

Insiders at the Mombasa road-based media house spoke to Viral Tea on Wednesday, September 7 and revealed that they did not receive their dues for the month of August, mostly packed with the general elections on Tuesday, August 9.

Some of them who spoke on condition of anonymity revealed that the salary hitch affected not just the newspaper segment in the media house but also the KTN TV stations; KTN Home and KTN News.

Outside the Standard Media Group offices. /FILE

"It is the 7th. No salary yet.

"There's no salary, now what to do," the insiders lamented to Viral Tea.

Some had called for the ouster of the group's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) over the issue while others whom Viral Tea approached had confirmed that a number of staff had not been paid for the month of August.

It turns out, however, that it is not the first time staff have been delayed their salaries. According to reports, SMG had in May encountered similar signs of financial constraints which have seen the media house struggle to pay its staff, the core engine of its media business.

Most employees from editorial, management and other departments had been experiencing salary delays over the past few months attributed to cashflow issues caused by a reduction in revenues and growing debts, among others. The hardest hit were correspondents who went for months without payment.

A huge number of SMG staff had not received their salaries, with some only getting their pay slips almost on three occasions but no money. A few were however paid.

Soon after a staff protest to Human Resources (HR), SMG's management was forced to acknowledge the problem, with management sending out a memo over the issue to forestall a rebellion that had begun to build up silently.

“As you may be aware there has been a delay in paying salaries for senior staff,” an internal memo sent by the HR manager on May 6 had stated, adding that “Finance are doing everything possible to pay the salaries soonest by mid next week.”

Standard, listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), has been struggling to stabilize its finances over the past five years by cutting its wage bill and increasing revenue streams. However, it has continued to post huge losses from its businesses which include, Standard newspaper, The Nairobian, 4 TV stations and several radio stations.

It posted a net loss of Ksh61.2 million in the first half of 2021, an improvement from a net loss of Ksh306 million in the same period in 2020, giving hope for a return to profitability at the end of the year.

In 2019, it was forced to issue a profit warning, a low moment for a listed company. This was the third profit warning – cautioning investors that profitability will fall significantly – in five years, having issued another in 2017.

This saw the company report a net loss of Ksh484 Million (and Ksh684 million before tax) for the full year compared to a profit of Ksh261.3 million in 2018.

The following year, in 2020, pretax loss reduced to Ksh434.4 million after a turbulent season headlined by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Standard Group PLC Chief Executive Officer Orlando Lyomu during the official launch of the converged newsroom and revamped KTN News studio on November 29, 2021. /STANDARD DIGITAL