Staff mem­bers at ra­dio sta­tion Pow­er 102 are com­plain­ing that they have not been paid salaries for the past two months. They al­so claimed that day to day ex­pens­es of run­ning the sta­tion were al­so out­stand­ing for some time. Mem­bers of staff, who re­fused to be iden­ti­fied, said they were giv­en cheques for their salaries in Au­gust but were not able to cash them when they went to the bank.

In an in­ter­view late last week, a mem­ber of staff said: "Yes, some staff have not been paid since Au­gust 10 or 11. We op­er­ate on a cash-col­lec­tion ba­sis and we have been hav­ing prob­lems since the be­gin­ning of the year. We had pay­ment is­sues and were told col­lec­tions were slow." He said things im­proved up to the month of May but things slowed again in Au­gust when they re­ceived their month­ly cheques.

He said sev­er­al staff mem­bers at 94.1, the sis­ter sta­tion of Pow­er 102, claimed they re­ceived cheques for their salaries but many were un­able to get cash. "Some of the staff at 94.1 re­ceived cheques but they couldn't change it when they went to the bank. There was no mon­ey in the ac­count," he said. He al­so said a com­put­er-leas­ing com­pa­ny from Bel­mont al­so re­claimed com­put­ers and phone equip­ment at the ra­dio sta­tion in Au­gust.

"We now use a make up sys­tem with the com­put­ers and phone lines and we are on­ly be­ing told that there is a cash liq­uid­i­ty prob­lem," he said. He said mem­bers of the staff claimed they had no union rep­re­sen­ta­tion and were on­ly now try­ing to join a union. De­spite these com­pli­ca­tions, the com­pa­ny's Web site re­mained up­dat­ed. When con­tact­ed, act­ing CEO Pe­ter Pe­na re­fused to com­ment. On June 2, 1997, Pow­er102.1 FM be­came a pi­o­neer in lo­cal broad­cast­ing as the first talk ra­dio sta­tion in T&T.