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Harare Bureau

FORMER Transmedia CEO, Florence Sigudu Matambo, has handed her ex-employer an urgent letter demanding that the organisation withdraws its search for a new chief executive.

Our Harare Bureau has seen a copy of the letter from Sigudu Matambo’s lawyer, Nigel Sithole of Chimuka Mafunga Commercial Attorneys dated 14 October 2020 addressed to Transmedia lawyers expressing the demands.

This is the latest development in a dispute that has played out between Transmedia and Sigudu Matambo over the past few months.

Sigudu-Matambo’s contract with Transmedia ended on 28

February 2020, but she continued in her role as CEO until the board terminated her contract on 28 March.

Documentation of the dispute filed at the Labour Court, shows that Sigudu Matambo believes her contract was unlawfully terminated as she did not receive due notice of non-renewal.

She served as the CEO of Transmedia since 2009 and her contract was renewed automatically three times after her initial appointment.

Although Sigudu Matambo through her lawyers filed an unlawful termination allegation at the Labour Court, the two parties have been in discussion and seemingly headed for an amicable out of court settlement.

One of Sigudu Matambo’s demands to which the Transmedia board had seemingly acceded to, was that the CEO position would not be filled until the matter is resolved.

Transmedia is now actively hunting for a CEO after the organisation has now been running for over six months with no substantial leadership.

Sigudu-Matambo’s lawyer has therefore written a ‘cease and desist’ letter to the Transmedia Board objecting to the advertisement published in the Sunday Mail on the 11th of October 2020 to fill the position and requesting for immediate retraction in writing or the party approaches the High Court for an Urgent Interdict against the recruitment process.

Sigudu-Matambo through her lawyer remarked that the advertisement is not in good faith as it takes away her primary remedy to the unlawful termination, which is the specific performance of reinstatement whilst her issues remain unresolved.

Transmedia board chairperson, Ambassador Marry Mubi, yesterday confirmed the impasse, but said lawyers representing the two parties were handing the matter.

“We are trying to resolve the matter through our lawyers (Transmedia and Sigudu Matambo lawyers). Hopefully, we will solve the matter amicably. But according to corperate governance, once a contract is terminated, we should immediately replace the CEO and the board is trying to do that,” she said.