Ummi Bashir, the Principal Secretary for Arts, Culture, and Heritage, has stated that many challenges confronting the Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) have resulted in creatives working without pay.
Bashir noted that the National Treasury’s underfunding and a slew of legal cases had significantly contributed to this predicament.She was saying during her appearance before the National Assembly Committee on Sports and Culture on Saturday.
“The court battles between Collective Management Organizations (CMOs) and KECOBO have denied the youth access to enough money despite their investments in the creative industry,” she said.
For example, she observed that Ksh103.7 million had been collected through the Blank Tape Levy as of February 28 but had yet to be released due to pending court action.
Another issue she said that was harming the creative industry was the Treasury’s failure to allocate development funding and instead just grant recurring expenditure funds.
According to PS Bashir, this has left the sector unable to implement critical development projects.
“During the budget process, KECOBO requested funds to implement a comprehensive ICT system for monitoring, licensing, collecting, and distributing royalties to artists, but the money was not disbursed,” she explained.
Due to the funding deficit, she encouraged the committee, chaired by Webuye West MP Dan Wanyama, to help lobby for the restitution of the Ksh25 million cut from KECOBO’s budget in the first supplementary budget for the fiscal year 2024/2025.
In addition, she sought Ksh43 million to cover a rent deficiency of Ksh17.4 million, internet services of Ksh320,160, contractual liabilities of Ksh6.8 million, copyright enforcement of Ksh13.3 million, and Board of Directors’ allowances of Ksh5.2 million.
On the plus side, she stated that the National Rights Registry system, which enables creatives to register their works from the comfort of their own homes or offices, had registered 60,000 works from 10,000 rights holders.
She also noted that KECOBO’s capacity-building activities had been highly successful, with the board training 5,000 creatives and 1,000 law enforcement officials in counties including Nyeri, Isiolo, Embu, Machakos, Kakamega, Kisumu, Kericho, Kisii, and Mombasa.
According to the PS, a process is underway to modify the Copyright Act to reflect technology changes and industry needs.
“The Board has drafted the Copyright Amendment Bill, 2025, which will soon be submitted by the Ministry to the Attorney General and Treasury for countersigning before proceeding to the Cabinet,” she stated.
