Aiming to reduce wage bill, among other things, Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) is restructuring. The first victims of this restructuring could be the 200 freelance journalists employed by the group.

In a letter, MBC’s management told the freelance journalists that their air-time reduced under the new programme schedule. A sure loss for non-permanent employees. They are paid 250 rupees per hour (about $7). Moreover, freelance workers will have only 11 working months throughout the year with no 13th additional month bonus as usual. Many of these employees could also lose their jobs.

MBC for the financial year 2013 had freelance workers generating a wage bill of 21.5 million rupees out of a total of 353.4 million disbursed for workers and allocations.

As MBC currently crumbles under huge debts, government’s rescue plan aims not only to reduce the firm’s charges, but also to boost its revenues.

One option here is to privatize the additional and cultural Tv channels which are Senn Kreol and Bhojpuri Channel. Also, to mitigate job cuttings, the government intends to create 2 new information channels within MBC so as to boost performance and advertising revenues.