It must be checked! Always!

The departure of the "unloved" president Steve Korn from Radio did not immediately lead to a calming of the situation, so life here continued in the old ways. Disrupted workplace relations, often caused by collaboration with previous management, as well as the practices brought here by his numerous teams of consultants and would-be specialists, led to the preservation of the status quo even after his departure.

As can be seen from the following table, which we obtained from the official OIG (BBG) report, the key managers here were hired after 2013.

Czech managers who took advantage of the opportunity and adapted to the "new era" are not listed here. They will gradually appear in our other posts along with their participation in the documented events. Also, other managers who joined after 2016 are not listed here.

For the system to work well, it must be well "lubricated".

The following table shows an example of the funds that should have flowed to Radio ГA / ГA in 2017.

The OIG (Office of Inspections) of the BBG (Board of Broadcast Governors) carried out on 13.9. – 2/12/2016 check with Radio ГA / ГA with with the following result:

• Weaknesses in the approval of contractual contracts and in cash operations

• CFO did not close expired grants

• Not all employees have signed the required conflict of interest declaration form

• The grant agreement between BBG and Radio did not meet the requirements for standards in the field of information technology

• The radio has an outdated security policy

In the area of human resources, it was stated that the principles of whistleblower protection, equal employment opportunities and prevention of sexual harassment included the wording that "false reporting may lead to termination of employment". The whistleblower policy further stated that "employees who make unreasonable complaints or make reports in bad faith lose their protection from termination." The OIG said employees could interpret this as a barrier to reporting sexual harassment or equal employment opportunity violations, or to filing a whistleblower complaint.

In the area of IT system security, it was noted that Radio did not have an effective information security program. It lacked information security policies and procedures that addressed internal control standards, including a risk management process to protect its systems and information. In one case in 2015, employees allegedly elevated their own privileges to access the network without proper authorisation. However, the IT director did not give the IT security program the required attention or support.

The OIG found that while Radio had security policies and procedures, it concluded that they were too general and had not been revised for some time, with some dating back to 2005. The grant agreement did not adequately address what security policies and procedures needed apply. The only mention of security in the grant agreement between BBG and the Radio concerned the investigation of potential employees. The lack of specificity in the grant agreement, along with significant turnover in senior management, led to the neglect of security policies and procedures.

Investigations of potentially eligible non-U.S. employees were truncated, varied by geographic region, and were insufficient to determine suitability for employment. The BBG Bureau of Investigation was understaffed to conduct a complete investigation of all potential Radio employees or to conduct periodic employee investigations. Moreover, the procedures governing such investigations were incomplete. The 2016 grant agreement between the BBG and the Radio, signed at the end of October 2015, required a protocol to include the categories of people required to be investigated. Failure to carry out comprehensive background checks on potential employees and regular employee investigations puts the company's personnel and operations at risk of compromise, the inspection concluded.

We have to agree with the conclusions of the BBG inspection. Incidents of computer security breaches showed signs that organised groups of "hackers" could have domestic accomplices.

On the other hand, Radio made it clear to the BBG control that information security is its top priority. Basically, until 2015, there was no one dedicated to IT security in "full time" contract. In 2015, it finally opened an IT Security Officer position to improve the information security program by applying industry best practices.

As is the custom, "the deed is gone".

Although a young, smiling and very chatty Romanian specialist took up this position, succeeding his skilled Czech predecessor, who left to work in Switzerland after a year, after several months of imitating work, interspersed with the occasional dissemination of his wisdom and after smoking a lot of cigarettes on the local terrace , recommended too – this time after an alleged cryptocurrency mining scandal at his workplace. As it turned out, this time in an expensive suit, he takes care of IT security at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

And so, in 2018, the position of IT Security Officer at Radio ГA / ГA was filled by another star. He was none other than a person that I will cover many times in my future posts. This specialist was none other than #JS("Joints smoker"). It is an open secret that he was bullied for this position by his supervisor and that my former supervisor #RC("Remotely controlled") also unsuccessfully applied for this position. He took his failure in this fight quite hard at the time and let it "eat up nicely" at every opportunity. In the previous regime, it was called - "collaborative relations in the workplace" and it only proves how difficult it was to get a foothold in Radio ГA / ГA version 2.0.

Today both gentlemen no longer work here. Even though the legal department tried to tell me several times that one left after less than two years of a stellar career and the other after more than 22 years at their own request, few believe it.

Both "super-humans" left with thanks (of course "to all stations") for a job well done and probably with a hefty severance pay. One headed to Paris, where he allegedly works as a security specialist at a small "advertisement" company and the other, he ended up in Washington, allegedly at some "budget agency" in the position of postal administrator. This is also how you can end a stellar career from the position of IT Director and after leaving "at your own request".

For lovers of the English language and honest readers, here is log from OIG BBG review.