Umma Bashir, the Principal Secretary for Arts, Culture, and Heritage, has revealed that several obstacles plaguing the Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) have led to creatives going without pay.
Speaking when she appeared before the National Assembly Committee on Sports and Culture on Saturday, Bashir stated that underfunding by the National Treasury and a raft of court cases have highly contributed to this dilemma.
"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 instance, she noted that Ksh103.7 million that had been collected through the Blank Tape Levy as of February 28 remains undistributed due to a pending court case.
The other issue she mentioned that was undermining the creative industry was the failure of the Treasury to allocate any development funds and only issue recurrent expenditure funds.
This, PS Bashir noted, had led to the industry being incapable of implementing crucial 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 this funding gap, she urged the committee, led by Webuye West MP Dan Wanyama, to help advocate for the reinstatement of the Ksh25 million cut from KECOBO’s budget in the first supplementary budget for the 2024/2025 financial year.
In addition to this, she requested Ksh43 million to address a rent shortfall of Ksh17.4 million, internet services costing Ksh320,160, contractual obligations amounting to Ksh6.8 million, copyright enforcement at Ksh13.3 million, and Board of Directors' allowances of Ksh5.2 million.
On the brighter side, she highlighted that the National Rights Registry system, which allows creatives to register their works from the comfort of their homes or offices, has registered 60,000 works from 10,000 rights holders.
She also stated that capacity-building efforts by KECOBO had seen a lot of success with the board training 5,000 creatives and 1,000 law enforcement officers in counties such as Nyeri, Isiolo, Embu, Machakos, Kakamega, Kisumu, Kericho, Kisii, and Mombasa.
A process to amend the Copyright Act to align with technological advancements and industry needs is also in the works, according to the PS.
"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.
