Station’s annual meeting turns ugly
May 14 2008 12:42:25:970PM  - (SA)  
Papi Tshabalala

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Things came to a head when prominent business man Paul Khala and his wife, Lilly, felt offended by a statement made by the station’s board chairperson, Samuel Mosikili.

Mosikili said the Khalas’ company LP Wall Coating, repossessed the Toyota Condor vehicle that they (LP Wall Coating) bought for the station after using the station’s airtime for their own benefit.

Provoked by this statement, a heated argument broke out between the station’s management and the Khala family.

They ascended the stage in protest of what was said about their company.

“We have done so much for the upliftment of this station and today it is bad naming our company.

“We bought them office furniture, an alarm system and the switch board on condition that we will have free airtime,” a fuming Khala said.

Khala said they bought the vehicle for the station on condition that LP Coating would have free minutes on air as long as the car was on their name.

He said they were surprised and shocked when they were told that all their adverts running on air had been stopped.

“We were not given reasons. To our surprise other adverts were still running on air and that is when we realised that something was not right.

“We then decided to go to the station and took our car,” he said.

Khala said he was not happy with the manner in which the station handled the matter, adding that it made them look bad to their potential customers.

“They said we were mentally ill and we need to be hospitalised but in fact they are the ones that breached the contract and now they say malicious things about our company,” said an angry Khala.

In his response Mosikili told Express Qwaqwa that there was a verbal agreement between the management of the station and that of LP Wall Coating.

“When we checked the legality of that verbal agreement, we discovered that they were in fact benefitting more than us from that agreement. We asked for a meeting with them but they threw us out of their house,” Mosikili claimed.

He said as a result, they took a stand and stopped LP Wall Coatings’ adverts and in return the company repossessed the car.

“The community needed to know what happened with the car, we had to tell them,” said Mosikili.

Meanwhile, the station’s Reggae Music Special presenter Saki Chele also showed his discontent when it was said during the same meeting that he was freelancing for the station.

Chele said, to his know?ledge he was just training new presenters for his show, The Reggae Special.

Approached by Express Qwaqwa for comment on the Chele issue, the station’s programme manager, Thabiso Gamede, decided to remain silent.

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