Namibia’s music collective management organisation spends 62 percent of everything it collects on administration, and its new board has two years to cut that to 30 percent. A CMO, or collective management organisation, licenses music to broadcasters and venues and splits the money back to writers.
The figure comes from Joseph Ailonga, confirmed as chairperson of the Namibian Society of Composers and Authors of Music (Nascam) at its annual general meeting, speaking to The Namibian’s Otto Gotlieb on 11 July 2026.
His target: lift annual revenue to N$15 million, cap operating expenditure at N$6 million, and distribute 70 percent of collections to rights holders.
N$6 million out of N$15 million is 40 percent, not 30. That gap is the first thing to check in the next annual report.
What Nascam actually collects, and what it does not
Nascam licenses broadcasters, retailers, hotels, restaurants, schools and live event organisers. That is public performance and broadcast income, not streaming income.
Distribution runs through an automated system, Cosis Net, weighted by verified broadcaster log sheets against the declared pool.
The widely quoted N$2 per play is not a tariff. “The N$2 per play figure is not a set rate. It is calculated based on the total royalties collected,” acting chief executive Ferdinand Gertze told The Namibian’s Pinehas Nakaziko on 2 March 2026. In the same report, parliamentarian Frederick Shitana called the structure insulting and said it dates to 1990.
The regional pattern is familiar: Malawi’s largest payout came off a blank media levy, Zimbabwe paid some members three dollars, Zambia is drafting a single state society. Every one of those rails predates streaming.
The 1994 Act does not see streaming
Namibia still runs on the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Protection Act 6 of 1994, amended once, by Act 8 of 2016. Gertze has said it needs amending to address online usage and digital platforms.
A draft Copyright Bill has been in the pipeline for years. Ockert Jansen of the Business and Intellectual Property Authority called it advanced in the law-making process in New Era, in November 2022. It is still not law.
Spotify has been live in Namibia since its 39-market African expansion in February 2021. Five years of streaming income has reached Namibian artists through a channel Nascam has no mandate over: the distributor.
What a Namibian release actually needs
ISRCs come from outside the country
ISRC means International Standard Recording Code, the identifier every DSP, or digital service provider, uses to match a stream to a payee. Namibia has no ISRC system of its own, which was Shitana’s point. Where there is no national agency, prefixes come from the International ISRC Agency at IFPI in London, or from your distributor at delivery. Either is valid. Releasing without one is not.
Register the works with Nascam anyway
Ailonga names unregistered works as one of three reasons members receive nothing, alongside broadcasters that skip playlist submission and thin local airplay. Registration is the only route to Namibian broadcast money and reciprocal payments from societies abroad. It does nothing for Spotify, Boomplay or Audiomack income.
Chase the log sheet
Cosis Net pays what the log sheet says. If a song ran on a station that filed nothing, in the ledger it did not run.
The grant funds data, not payouts
Nascam has N$1.7 million from a two-year UNESCO partnership covering a national mapping across all 14 regions, a NamMusic Hub copyright platform and a policy dialogue, reported by The Namibian on 9 July 2026. Project manager Leake Ileka’s reason: industry decisions have been made without national data. NBC put the figure at N$1.5 million.
Useful, and not the same thing as money landing in a writer’s account. Thirty-two points of administrative cost, if the board recovers them, is worth more to members every year than any grant on the table.
For anyone releasing out of Windhoek, recorded-music royalties are a distribution question and always have been. CMO reform is a separate, slower fight over broadcast money. Pick a distributor that assigns ISRCs on delivery, ships to Boomplay and Audiomack alongside Spotify and Apple Music, and reports per territory, so you can read what Namibia pays instead of inferring it.
