Sunday, January 3, 2016

The strange management of MNCOM

With the help Sauve Gerard Malanda, the editor in chief and Emmanuel Kaba, the publisher, we made or transformed Le Fanion, which was a weekly that was published sporadically, into a regular publication and we went ahead to make Le Fanion to become a daily that was capable to compete with Les Depeches de Brazzaville. The media group MNCOM, was from without a formidable thing, admired and feared by most, but in reality, it was at the image of Congo: disorganized.  Salaries of staff are or were not paid regularly. Sometimes, staff stayed for 10 months without being paid. More, the contracts signed with management staff or all employees are /were seldom respected. The last General Manager of the group to be humiliated or to go for months without salaries was Rene Michel Mboukou. He was not paid for close to ten months, exhausted, he had to leave. But the man who can be credited for putting order in the finances of MNCOM and also making Maurice Nguesso to see or to consider MNCOM as a private entity and not a civil service was a Gabonese accountant by name Florent Koumba. Florent Koumba and I were known positively or negatively as the “Kourissa boys”.



The other person in the team who was also considered as a “Kourissa boy” was Nick Sam Owosso. Mr Owosso was/is a Ghanaian, God fearing man. We were called or identify as “Kourissa Boys” simply because we stood and supported Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa who wanted the media Group to be run or be managed in an orthodox manner. But the sad thing was that, even though we labored for things to be properly run, most decisions were taken from without, by Maurice Nguesso and his team or his boys who were known as the “Maurice Boys”.  MNCOM decisions were not made by the legitimate management headed by Lydie Hortense Kourissa but from without by the closest collaborators of Maurice Nguesso. These ones were those who imposed onto us their way of doing things.  And this type of strange management, created tension between those of us working officially and those who were collaborators of Maurice Nguesso and who felt that, they were the legitimate persons. The other front was that of the family of Maurice Nguesso and his 19 children. They all wanted to have a say in the way the company was being managed or wanted to control the company even though they had little or no experience in management.

This was so because, their father had enlisted some of them to be paid or had become salarised staff even if they were not working. They were four of his children who were being paid the monthly lump sum of FCFA one million.   Besides Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa, Maurice had   another of his daughter  by name Charden Nguesso,who was appointed as the directress of Marketing. He also appointed another of his daughters as the directress of the Impremerie Ayessa.  While his son Rodrigue Nguesso arguably the best vest in management, never got interested directly, but was pulling the strings behind. The MNCOM media group was at the image of Congo’s government. The only thing or component that was well managed and thus succeeded was the Radio and Television part. And this was because, I managed it directly and this with the support of Maurice Nguesso. The one good thing with Maurice Nguesso is that, he has respect for people who know their job. It is only when he suspects that, you are not fit that, he starts intervening and or allowing his collaborators to intervene. The Television worked well because, I fought hard to establish it autonomy within the group.

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