×

We've got news for you.

Register on SowetanLIVE at no cost to receive newsletters, read exclusive articles & more.
Register now

'She sent me videos of vagina'

A FREE State community radio station has been rocked by a sex scandal while staff have not been paid salaries for months.

Nyiko Mathebula, the station manager at Mozolo FM in Kroonstad, is accused of sexual harassment by news reader Montsheng Bofelo. She has been quoted in at least two newspapers confirming her complaint against her boss.

But an angry Mathebula said: "On the issue of sexual harassment as reported, I will ask you [Sowetan] a question. If people can open cases against Bill Cosby when the harassment allegedly happened in the '80s why do they fail to open a case against me?

"Do you want me to send you videos of her vagina? She has been sending me videos . How did the pictures and video end up on my phone if I was sexually harassing her? I can send you her messages and Facebook inboxes where she asked me if she could say I harassed her."

Bofelo told Sowetan that nothing happened between her and her boss. She denied ever saying that Mathebula, a married man, harassed her, despite the newspaper reports quoting her.

"I never said I was sexually harassed. If it happened, I would have opened a case. Maybe the people who started that rumour can comment on what happened because I don't know," she said.

But she insisted that she didn't send Mathebula her nude pictures.

"I never sent him the pictures or videos. He knows in his heart how they ended up on his phone," she said without elaborating.

Mathebula later withdrew his offer to leak the video and pictures to Sowetan because, he said, his name was "cleared" by Bofelo's confession.

Things have gone off the rails at the station so badly that last Sunday staff members locked themselves in the studios for two days in protest over the non-payment of their salaries.

Furthermore, they complained about financial mismanagement and bullying by management, lack of confidence in the board and verbal abuse by Mathebula.

Speaking for the striking workers, Refiloe Meje said some of staff members left their previous jobs after they were promised salaries. In her case, she received her R10000 salary only three times since the station went on air in June.

Meje said: "We were promised salaries. What sane person would leave a paying job to volunteer? Our manager does not understand what it is to be a manager. He swears and is unprofessional. He is the station manager but he does everything, from the manager's job to the receptionist's.

"We see money coming in from advertisers but we are told there is no money and we can't be paid."

The presenters have gone back on air and Meje said they were "unequally" paid last Wednesday.

Mathebula poured cold water over Meje's remarks.

"We are an NGO. We don't have employees, we have volunteers. We pay stipends, not salaries. I don't get paid R10000. I do not know a community radio station that would pay reporters R10000 in this country," he said.

mashotol@sowetan.co.za

 

For more stories like this one, be sure to buy the Sowetan newspaper from Mondays to Fridays

Would you like to comment on this article?
Register (it's quick and free) or sign in now.

Speech Bubbles

Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.