The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) Board of Directors has given the company’s former chief executive officer Adelaide Chikunguru 48 hours to make a formal report concerning her claims on social media of unfair dismissal.
ZBC said if Chikunguru fails to make the report within the prescribed period, it reserves the right to approach the High Court for a decree of perpetual silence on her part.
Chikunguru was suspended by the ZBC board on 28 February pending a hearing into acts of misdemeanours but she tendered her resignation two days later before the internal process could take place.
After she resigned, Chikunguru alleged on social media that she was forced out of her job through victimisation for spurning Information Minister Jenfan Muswere’s sexual advances.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, 12 March, the ZBC board threatened to take legal action in response to the allegations. Reads the statement:
On 28th February 2024, the Board of Directors (“the Board”) of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (“the Corporation”) suspended the former Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation, Ms. Adelaide Chikunguru. The Board did not make public the details of the allegations against the former CEO.
Subsequently, on the 1st of March 2024, the former CEO resigned and thus closed the door on an independent and impartial investigation of the allegations. The hearing panel would have consisted of a retired judge of the Supreme Court and two senior legal practitioners, each of more than twenty years standing. The presenter of evidence would have been a senior advocate in private practice.
Thereafter, the former CEO has resorted to social media to suggest that the charges were trumped up in pursuit of a personal and politicised agenda by certain named individuals. Privileged documents of the Corporation have been made public and out of context, to drive a misleading narrative that has caused immeasurable reputational and financial prejudice to the Corporation and its stakeholders. The use of the privileged documents, albeit out of context, is contrary to her contract of employment and the relevant legislation.
Her social media statements, whilst apparently targeted at specific individuals, have scandalised the Corporation, its Board, and critical Stakeholders. Specifically, the suggestion is that the Board has abdicated its fiduciary duty to the Corporation and is acting at the whim of the Minister and the Board Chairman. The suggestion is made further, that the Corporation is unable to meet its obligations to key Stakeholders. Name-dropping has been central in this sustained and unmitigated assault on the Board, the Corporation, and its key Stakeholders.
The Board registers its grave concern with the sustained, protracted, unmitigated and continuing onslaught on the Corporation, its key Stakeholders, and the associated reputational risk.
The Board publicly asserts its fiduciary responsibility to the Corporation and takes strong exception to Ms. Chikunguru’s insinuation that it has abdicated its fiduciary obligations and oversight role over the affairs of the Corporation.
The Board publicly asserts that the narration regarding its capacity to meet its obligations to both internal and external stakeholders is false and has no basis whatsoever.
The Board reassures its valued stakeholders that the Corporation remains committed to its core mandate within the dictates of sound corporate governance. The Board will remain focused on what it has to do in the public interest.
The Board makes it categorically clear that at no time did Ms. Chikunguru raise with the Board, as she should have done, what she is now raising in the public domain.
The Board advises Ms Chikunguru to pursue her claims, if any, through the due process of the law and notes her continued suggestion that her lawyers have been briefed. The Board publicly states that there is no substance in the allegations against the Board and the Corporation. To this end, the Board invites her to execute her threats of resort to law against the Corporation within the next forty-eight (48) hours. In the event that she does not do so, the Board reserves the right to approach the High Court for a decree of perpetual silence calling upon her to bring the threatened legal action or forever keep her peace. This decision is necessary to protect the continuing harm to the Corporation’s interests and those of its Stakeholders.
The Board wishes to emphasise that her resignation has not ended the investigation of the issues that led to her suspension. She will be made to account in terms of the law for any loss, potential or real, of assets or other forms of prejudice that the Corporation may have suffered because of her alleged misconduct. Neither her resignation nor her media statements will stop or derail the Board from completing its investigation and taking the necessary legal steps to protect the Corporation’s interests and recover any lost value or assets.
The Board reserves the right to protect and preserve the integrity of its confidential documents and to protect the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and its valued Stakeholders to the fullest extent permissible at law.
