Mega charges for radio ‘rampage’

FOUR suspended employees at audio streaming radio station Megazone Radio are now facing criminal charges.

The station’s lawyer, Ashika Maharaj, confirmed that charges of malicious damage to property, trespassing, sabotage, defeating and the obstruction of justice, intimidation and harassment have been laid against the employees. But, that’s not all.

“The employees were in breach of the restraint clause in their contracts of employment and the company will be pursuing the necessary high court application in this regard,” Maharaj added.

The employees – two channel managers, a technical manager and a call centre manager – had allegedly bunked work in September after their salary was not paid due to company boss Vishal Maharaj being hospitalised. The company had then suspended the employees and began its own investigation.

According to Maharaj, the investigation revealed that the staff members had embarked on a “rampage of defiance and destruction” after they were suspended, causing damages of R300 000.

“They maliciously damaged the company’s studio equipment, computers and telephone lines. They tampered with the CEO’s laptop by changing his password. They tampered with and interrupted the Bollywood channels live radio broadcasts.

“They illegally accessed the company’s surveillance and watched the traffic of people entering and leaving the company premises. They then contacted the remaining 20+ staff members who were reporting for duty and threatened them with violence should they continue reporting for duty,” Maharaj said.

“They contacted the company’s service providers and misrepresented to them that the company was in financial hardship and closing down. They deleted from the company’s surveillance those parts of the footage that would have recorded their entry into the company premises and their subsequent damage of studio equipment.

“They withheld company passwords that they were entrusted with, resulting in the company suffering extreme prejudice financially as it could not operate at maximum potential. The total extent of the damage when evaluated was R300 000,” she said.

Maharaj added that the workers had continued to defame the company and its CEO, directly and indirectly on various social media sites.

The suspended employees declined to comment.