Nascam AGM Fails to Elect New Board

Close to 100 of the about 7 000 members of the Namibian Society of Composers and Authors of Music (Nascam) attended the organisation’s annual general meeting (AGM) last weekend.

The crop included some of the crème de la crème of Namibian music, such as the likes of Swart Baster, S-Man, Dice, Berthold and Mabuzza.

According to Nascam chief executive officer John Max, this year’s AGM was a relative success although the AGM failed to hold the election of new board of directors and to provide detailed financial reports to its members.

“We came out of the terrible and challenging Covid-19 lockdown and limited gathering. We thank God that we were able to host the Nascam AGM, which was not possible for the last two years,” he said

Max added that the AGM is the most powerful decision-making platform for Nascam because it gives new directives and guidance on how the organisation should provide service and benefits to its members, in terms of its constitution.

However, many members felt they were sidelined for many years and did not receive information about this year’s nomination process or about who is eligible to serve on the Nascam board after representatives from the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology and artists’ unions failed to send members to serve on the board.

Although the process of an election was followed, as prescribed by the constitution, members felt the AGM needed to amend some of the sections of the constitution in order to conduct a fair election. This forced members and the board to move a motion for an extra-ordinary AGM or special general meeting.

Rapper Dice, who was very vocal during the meeting, told unWrap.online that the AGM went well even though it was postponed again.

“Artists came with an understanding of expectations from the current board of directors and also how Nascam generally performed. The questions were mature and not thumb-sucked, but more factual and coming from a place of wanting to know exactly how things are done,” Dice said.

He added that the Nascam board did not expect members to be very engaging, although the organisation has been advocating for that.

“It was not business as usual, things like the financials and the election of the new board were not presented properly. The whole AGM had to be postponed for these reasons. Artists were awake, they knew what they wanted. So, I see the [postponement of the] AGM as a victory for artists,” Dice said

“We look forward to the next AGM, so that we can move forward. The idea is not to shame anybody but to actually clean the house so that the institutions work for the artists, and so that artists can benefit directly and indirectly from the institution,” he said.

Nascam also held an information session two hours before the AGM, with three experts sharing information on intellectual property rights, focusing mainly on copyright issues.

A presentation by Onesmus Joseph from the Business and Intellectual Property Authority enlightened Nascam members about what type of copyright rights are managed in Namibia.

Rob Hooijer, an expert in collective management organisation, explained about rights between different shareholders of copyright works, as it pertains to music or the music industry, specifically soundtrack and recording rights.

A third presentation was delivered by Sakhele Mzalazala from CD Baby, a South African collective management organisation. Mzalazala informed Nascam members how they can directly make an income from online music stores.

– unWrap.online

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