The Pepper publication is facing an in-house crisis after top managers and senior employers in all departments resigned unexpectedly decrying delayed salary payment.
Since the year started a number of reporters, editors, accountants, sales representatives and a number of casual workers threw in the towel.
“The management failed to explain why we are spending many months working but without payment yet the company registers profits,” one of the workers said.
In what appears to be a financial meltdown, the Red Pepper has reduced pages and also shut down its sister Hello as a means of cutting costs.
Hello’s closure was resolved on Wednesday afternoon after the five directors sat with senior managers in a heated meeting.
Since its inception in 2013 the tabloid had failed to expand its market share and also consolidate its advertising muscle making it difficult run its operations.
“Before the bosses decided to shut it down many workers had call it quits including editors, reporters, designers and those who work in production. So far Hello had remained with only 4 workers reason it reduced pages to 16 with most of the content generated from internet,” an official at Namanve said.
“In an effort to reduce the production costs, management has resolved to lay off the remaining few workers. The company hopes to remain with at most 40 workers,” revealed the source adding that; “Copy sales have dropped yet the costs of producing and putting the newspaper on market have gone up,” said a source.
