The fate of journalists and other staff at Standard Group Limited continues to hang in the balance as a fresh round of redundancies looms large at the Mombasa Road-based media.

A meeting of the Executive Committee and other heads of departments held at the SGL offices on Monday failed to chat a clear path forward at the cash-strapped media house.

The meeting came amid reports of a push for the resignation of Standard Group CEO Orlando Lyomu, who has reportedly been pushing for redundancies from mid-January.

However, sources tell Swala Nyeti that Lyomu has opted to stay put and face the media owners head-on with the Human Resource Department backing his proposal for layoffs.

According to the sources at the troubled media house, if approved, the mass layoffs could commence next week with those affected set to start receiving their letters next week.

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Similarly, Swala Nyeti has learnt that billionaire Joshua Kulei, who owns a substantial stake in the Standard Group, has been playing a more significant role in reviving the media house.

In that regard, Kulei, who was late President Daniel Moi's Private Secretary, is rumoured internally to be pushing for some far-reaching changes at the media company that could see the CEO edged out alongside a number of members of the board.

This comes as employees at SGL are said to have gone for more than three months without their salaries after receiving October 2022 pay with 20 per cent pay slash without notice.

A significant number of the already demoralised media workers are said to be working from home as the company blames its failure to pay salaries on the prevailing harsh economic times and adverse effects of the 2020 pandemic on its business.  

Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) led by Secretary General Eric Oduor last week called for a strike by the embattled employees from January 6 terming the failure by SGL to pay them as a violation of labour laws.   

Standard Group owns and operates KTN, KTN News, The Standard newspapers, Radio Maisha, The Nairobian, Standard Digital, Spice Fm, Vybes Radio among other platforms.