When I assumed duty as the General Manager (GM), Katsina State Television (KTTV), I knew that I had to face the problems squarely if I was to, at least, takle the rot in the system.
I compartmentalized the problems into the following at the back of my mind: insisting on collecting and remitting the generated revenue, controlling the wayward producers, reporters/editors, accounts and commercial officers. I tackled all the problems simultaneously.
Some of the commercial officers were collecting charges on behalf of the station and converting the money to their personal use. One particular guy had placed himself strategically between the station and businessmen/philanthropists who sponsored programmes in the station. He would collect money from them to sponsor programmes and pocket it and tell me it would be paid later. And it never got paid.
So I passed word around that I was going to meet with all the people who sponsored programmes in the station to ascertain the level of their indebtedness. When he heard about this he started paying the money into the station's account.
As for the producers, I discovered that they were producing programmes without synopsis. Everybody was doing their programmes as they wished.
Consequently, in every programme, they would go out and interview local government chairmen, prominent personalities and charge money irrespective of whether or not it was a commercial programme. So I convened a programme planning conference and insisted that no programme would be allowed on air without synopsis and no two programmes should be alike.
Some of the reporters and news editors were also sneaking in commercial news which they tried to pass off without paying the commercial rates. I always detected such news as I always checked the bulletin before the news was cast.
Even the Transmission Controllers were not left behind as they sometimes collected money and aired unscheduled commercials after I had left the station at night. So I insisted on recording all our transmission, which was a provision of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, anyway. Whenever I found unscheduled commercials, the Transmission Controller was made to pay for it.
There was also an arrangement to give staff some stipend to buy drugs prescribed by a doctor when they were sick. One of the accounts staff kept an imprest and paid eligible staff after filling an appropriate form. I discovered that the staff would temper with the form after the staff had filled it and add some amount of money which he converted to his personal use. For instance, if ₦500.00 was approved, he would add 1 in front of the 5, making it ₦1,500.00. Unknown to him, I always kept a personal note of any amount of money I approved. When I confronted him with my notebook in the presence of his head of department he started shaking like a leaf and begged for mercy. He never did it again.
All this assisted in raising the revenue base of the station such that I was commended by the State House of Assembly when we went for budget defence. In one year, I generated a revenue of more than twelve million naira as against the three million naira that used to be generated.