The radio station BFM 89.9 has terminated two of its employees after an internal investigation on allegations of sexual harassment.
BFM said its board, comprising current and former non-executive directors, has deemed that there is sufficient evidence to warrant the duo’s termination.
“The BFM management team acknowledges that more could have been done to proactively gather evidence so that such misconduct could have been addressed in a more timely manner,” the station’s founder Malek Ali said in a statement today.
The allegations were highlighted in an anonymous letter circulated to various news organisations, including Malaysiakini, last month.,
The letter was purportedly written by a former BFM employee and details several instances of sexual misconduct that the station’s management was allegedly covering up.
As for allegations of rape detailed in the letter, Malek said BFM’s management first became aware of the matter on May 2017 and had immediately launched an investigation and subsequently terminated the alleged perpetrator.
“The BFM management team did not make a police report as the complainant did not wish to escalate the matter at the time,” he added.
BFM had previously appointed a team of lawyers to investigate the allegations detailed in the anonymous letter last month after it circulated.
Malek said the team had submitted its findings to the board last week, and the board had met and communicated its decisions to the BFM management team.
Moving forward, Malek said the station’s management is working on a new system to handle employees’ grievances and is aiming to have the system in place within four weeks.
In addition, a review of BFM’s internal policies and guidelines is underway.
“Our goal is to ensure that our employees feel assured that they work in a safe environment.
“As part of this review, we will be instituting training and awareness programmes for all employees. These will clearly lay out the parameters of acceptable and unacceptable conduct in the workplace, and the consequences for transgressions,” he said.
