MBC has a total of 709 employees: Helpers promoted to the grade of Producer / Senior Producer

A parliamentary question put to the Prime Minister by Mahen Jhugroo revealed that the MBC has a total of 709 employees currently serving, of whom:

• 131 are employed on a freelance basis
• 22 are employed on a contract basis and
• 556 are on the permanent and pensionable establishment.

Sir Anerood Jugnauth also informed the House ‘that the Report of the Public Sector Efficiency Bureau on Human Resource Management at the MBC has highlighted the following findings, among others:

• there was no clear and defined recruitment and promotion procedures at the MBC. These were undertaken at the whims and caprices of the executive management team;
• some 134 employees had been granted salary increments more than that prescribed by the Pay Research Bureau;
• contract officers had been paid cash in lieu of annual leave though there was no record of attendance;
• the personal files of employees were not complete;
• some 300 persons had been recruited under both freelance and contractual basis and there was no evidence that there had been a proper advertisement;
• there was no indication of the number of approved position for each grade at the MBC;
• Security Officers had been recruited though such posts did not exist;
• schemes of service had been tailored to accommodate employees who did not possess the required qualifications;
• a substantial number of contractual employees and those serving as freelance had been offered permanent employment over a very short lapse of time;
• employees who had been previously dismissed were re-employed and subsequently offered employment on permanent and pensionable basis;
• there are instances where employees who joined as Helper had been promoted to the grade of Producer/Senior Producer;
• some 253 employees out of 412 (i.e. around 60%) on the permanent and pensionable establishment had been promoted over the period March 2013 to April 2014. Promotions had been granted without proper assessment; and
• the MBC could be the only organisation in the Public Sector which employs Office Attendants whose duties do not include cleaning of offices.’