You can’t fire me just like that, Geoffrey Mosoku tells management as he declines to sign sacking letter
One of the journalists declared redundant by the Standard Group has declined to sign the sacking letter and sought an interpretation of terms used to push him out.
Geoffrey Mosoku (pictured) is said to have asked the Standard Group management to justify his sacking since he had not contravened any of the provisions in his contract.
There were tense moments and drama during a session with a panel of editors constituted to send off journalists when Mosoku declined to sign the redundancy letter and asked them to give good reasons why he was being edged out yet he was among top performers.
“It’s beyond us,” they reportedly told a furious Mosuku, who is said to have stormed out of the session.“He basically wants the management to explain what redundancy means,” said a friend of Mosoku who has been spared the lay-off.
Mosoku, a very prolific political reporter, was poached in December 2012 from Radio Africa Group where he was a writer with the Star newspaper. He joined the Standard on permanent and pensionable terms, according to records at the company’s HR office.
His employment contract, whose contents BusinessToday has managed to access, provides termination notice of three months for either party and spells out three circumstances that can lead to sacking.
First is conflict of interest such as running a business that is in competition with Standard. Second is if he violates the Standard code of ethics and, finally, unexplained absenteeism. It’s not clear whether one of these was contravened. “Mosoku holds that the contract does not provide for redundancy,” his colleague says.
Mosoku’s move to the Standard was closely watched as he became one of the highest paid reporters in the media industry then with a salary of Ksh160,000 when his peers were earning between Ksh40,000 and Ksh120,000. Those close to him feel he is a victim of his own success, observing that he has been a key writer who contributed three to four front-page stories per week.
Victim of circumstances?
But the Standard could have targeted him because of his big pay as it seeks to cut its payroll expenses and harmonise staff salaries as per Deloitte’s recommendation. If you factor annual increments for the last two years, Mosoku could be earning in the neighbourhood of Ksh200,000. “His file is very clean,” said a senior editor at Standard, who regrets the exit. “I don’t think he has received a memo or complaint from any of our managing editors. I don’t know exactly why someone would want him out.”
A Kenya Union of Journalist member, Mosoku will be banking on the union to take up his case and arm-twist Standard into either reinstating him or giving him a better send-off package. The journalist was sighted at the office of leading city lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi, but it’s not clear if he had gone to seek legal counsel from the law firm.
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