Albania’s public television building in Tirana. Photo: BIRN.
The plight of Albania’s debt-laden public broadcaster has again come under scrutiny this week amid claims that it has not paid some contributors.
On Monday, Kozeta Kurti took to Facebook to vent her frustration with Radio-Television Albania, RTSH.
Kurti, author and host of the TV show ‘Diary of an Artist’ on RTSH, said she and her staff had not been paid for their work as external contributors, and had received no explanation why.
“Later, I knocked on every door: the legal office, the finance office, the office of the director of the programming; I asked for a meeting with the director-general [perhaps it is easier to get into the White House than Eni Vasili’s office]; I wrote a long email,” Kurti said in her post.
In April, Vasili took over as director general of a broadcaster in dire financial straits and burdened with lawsuits stemming from the abrupt firing of some 150 employees by her predecessor, former politician Alfred Peza.
Like Kurti, journalist Elsa Demo said on Monday that she too is owed money and had been left in the dark about the fate of the arts and culture show she presents, called ‘Artes’.
“I was supposed to be on air today,” Demo wrote in an opinion piece for BIRN Albania’s Reporter.al website, adding that she had twice requested a meeting with Vasili and been rebuffed. “Her staff has not responded either,” Demo wrote.
According to members of the RTSH Board of Directors, the broadcaster is six million euros in debt and the unfair dismissal cases stemming from Peza’s firing spree have so far cost it 1.8 million euros.
BIRN asked for a comment from Vasili and filed an official request for information, but received no response by the time of publication.
The public broadcaster is, in theory, politically independent, but the Board of Directors is elected by parliament, which is dominated by the ruling Socialist Party, and the General Director is elected by the board. Peza was a former Socialist Party MP.
Having taken over in April, Vasili, herself a journalist, told a July meeting with media organisations that staff at the public broadcaster “should be treated with more dignity” and that RTSH should “return to its historic role as a media school that shapes and prepares new generations”.
However, several other contributors to the public broadcaster told BIRN, on condition of anonymity, that they too are owed money.
“There have been payment delays for almost a year, but in the last months they have been completely blocked,” said one. “Since May, we have not been paid for the work we do as collaborators. We have complained, but no one gives us a clear answer.”
Another said she had not been paid since June 9 and that she had been told the broadcaster was undergoing “deep reforms”.
“Three months have passed without payments,” the journalist told BIRN. “We have been told that we will be paid, but not when.”
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