The Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) audit of the three Collective Managament Organisations (CMOs) that are contracted to collect royalties on behalf of performers, musicians, artistes etc.
Ronalds LLP, the firm contracted to carry out the audit found out that there were majot incidences of corruption and looting in the CMOs, mistly through diversion of royalties.
Poor Corporate Governance and separation of roles, suspected fraudulent transactions, poor record keeping and non-compliance with statutory requirements were also among those issue that the audit uncovered.
KECOBO stated last week that the file will be handed over to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) after ‘responses received from the three CMOs were not sufficient to change the findings of the earlier Draft Forensic Report’.
In 2016, MCSK suspended its CEO Maurice Okoth ‘due to his pending criminal cases in court’. The Board also added that Okoth went overboard when he attempted to defraud the society of Sh350,000 by approving an invoice for alleged legal services by Otieno Arum and Co Advocates by a MCSK employer, mispresented the Board, bringing about a “conflict of interest”.
Here below a former staff member at one of the CMOs gives snippets of the rot in the organsiations.
Dear Nyakundi,
Today, staff have no salary because of COVID but board members get a monthly allowance as well as senior staff. These are architects of corruption; the three societies:
KAMP – Kenya Association of Music Producers
Former board – Justus Ngemu the then chairman, fought over control with Kassanga (current MCSK board); Ngemu owned a Nissan car bought by proceeds of looting.
Current board
CEO Clifford Mabele very incompetent and has Board members in his pocket (sacked from Nzoia Sugar before joining KAMP)
PRISK – Performers Rights Society of Kenya
Previous board
Board members micromanaged PRISK; awarded themselves lots of money through allowances (could have 3 or 4 meetings a week at 15k per meeting, excluding transport)
Some (Iddi Achieng’, Irene Kariuki) were paid huge salaries over Sh1 million in a span of six months)
Board members illegally took loans from money meant for artist royalties (the likes of Musician Nonini, Iddi, SK Blue, Daddy Owen and Irene Kariuki)
Nameless has integrity; suffered depression because of the likes of Nonini, Irene Kariuki.
PRISK current board
Corrupt like the previous one; the current chairman together with some board members eating artist monies – see the way they’ve grown fat over night. CEO eating with chairman
MCSK
Former chair Bernard Mukaisi even bought a Range Rover; board members fought over control.
No different with current board that’s chaired by Kassanga.
Same monkeys, different forests.
CMOs are rotten to the core because of the people who sit on their boards. It’s time KECOBO took action.
By the way, I wish you knew the deals that involved Skiza money; story for another day. Previous boards of the three CMOs made money. People bought cars and built homes. That’s why others are fighting hard to get back there.
ONE
TWO
Looters: MCSK, KAMP and PRISK bosses set to be investigated by DCI
