MBC finally fires Gloria Banda

In a dramatic twist of fate, Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) radio personality Gloria Banda  -who is also wife to MBC Director of Programs Albert Mungomo – has been fired as an employee of the axpayer-funded media house  for misconduct effective 22nd March 2016, Nyasa Times can reveal.

The decision follows a unanimous decision of a six member MBC’s disciplinary committee panel to fire Banda  after finding her “guilty”of being the mastermind of anonymous letters that have been circulating at the corporation castigating MBC’s Director General Aubrey Sumbuleta and other staff at the corporation.

According to sources who attended the disciplinary meeting,  Gloria Banda got busted and exposed when some people she engaged to circulate the latest round of letters on social media were caught and they implicated her.

Nyasa Times sources  said during the disciplinary meeting Gloria Banda who has  allegedly been calling herself and her husband as the untouchable mafia family at MBC was surprised to find emails she had been writing to her agents instructing them to publish the articles tendered as evidence against her.

‘‘She was clearly shocked; and when a twenty minute long recording of her talking to one of her agents in a car was played for her she almost fainted,’’ said the source.

According to the source, when copies of her emails were given to her to check, Gloria Banda got furious and started shouting at the disciplinary panel saying that she was entrapped and that there was a plot against her.

‘‘She admitted that the email address [email protected] which was being used to send the anonymous letters uses her name. But instead on denying or accepting the contents of the emails, she just kept asking mwazipeza bwanji zimenezi, wakupatsani ndani?’’.

Ulemu is the Chichewa name for Gloria and Khupe is the name of Gloria’s father.

When Gloria Banda nee Khupe received an invitation to appear before the committee, she boosted that she was politically connected in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and that the MBC management was wasting its time.

She demanded that she appears at the hearing with two representatives.

‘‘When she was advised that procedures only allow one representative, she bossed her way through and brought her lawyer Aisha Banda from Mbetá and Company. She also brought a labour representative from the Ministry of labour. We allowed her because we had nothing to hide,’’ said the source.

According to the anonymous letters which Nyasa Times has seen, Gloria has been attacking MBC Director Sumbuleta accusing him of failure to run MBC. She has also continuously attacked President Mutharika of hiring Sumbuleta allegedly simply because both are Lhomwe instead of giving the top job at MBC to her husband Albert Mungomo commonly known as “Mr Madonzero.” Or “Mr Blantyre.”

Ironically Gloria Banda is also a Lhomwe from Mulanje.

She has also been attacking presidential aide Ben Phiri for allegedly demanding business from MBC.

In her anonymous letters, Gloria Banda also heavily attacked Minister of Information Jappie Mhango describing him as “a puppet” and MBC Board Chairperson Moffat Banda calling him “a villager. “

According to sources at MBC, Gloria is a victim of her own making after she started feeling too big and started victimising fellow staff members especially women when her husband become Director of Programs.

‘‘We are not surprised. She was doing all that to fight for her husband who is fighting a management decision to demote him for incompetence. But as fellow women, we wonder why she was victimising us,’’ said one female employee.

Some of Gloria Banda’s victims in the department include; Patricia Sundu, Flora Mkusa Nkhoma, Bashil Amini, Cosmas Tchale, Hope Chisanu, Ian Simbota, Olipper Banda and Esther Matope among others.

Nyasa Times has established that all these were abused at one point or another by the once untouchable Gloria Banda. The abuse included bad mouthing them, sending them to pick her kids from school and drop them to her home or cash money for her at Ginnery Corner Standard bank ATM as part of ‘‘ any duties assigned from time to time’’.

Albert Mungomo married Gloria Banda after dumping his wife for many years when he became presidential press officer for late President Bingu wa Mutharika.

The youthful and cute Gloria dumped her husband a Mr. Banda for Mungomo.

At MBC Gloria Banda was the deputy to Mungomo in the same department. The two treated the department as their personal estate while bragging that they made Peter Mutharika win the presidency as such they were untouchable.

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