Kora back in the limelight

Kora back in the limelight2017 promos up and running The organisers have started promoting this year’s show on social media. The Kora-All Africa Music Awards organisers appear to have secured a country to host the 2017 event, months after they disappeared with close to N$24 million of Namibian taxpayer’s money.

The Kora All-Africa Music Awards have been mired in secrecy and controversy, especially after reports emerged accusing Kora founder Ernst Adjovi of being a charlatan who uses the awards show to milk money from the host country's government.

The awards were scheduled to take place in Namibia in March last year, but this never materialised. About two months after the Kora Awards ceremony was supposed to take place in Namibia, legal action was initiated in an attempt to recover more than N$23.5 million the Namibian Tourism Board (NTB) had paid it to market Namibia. The organisers have now created social media accounts promoting this year’s event under the theme ‘Kora 2017 – Lighting African Stars’.

However, there was no immediate information available as to where and when the awards will take place. On Facebook, the Kora 2017 account appears to encourage the public to vote for this year’s nominees to be in the top 20. NTB is suing Mundial Telecom Sarl, Adjovi and Tonata Shiimi for N$23.5 million – the sum it paid for the purchase of a 'Platinum Tourism Package' which it never received.

Mundial Telecom owns the rights to host the Kora Awards while Adjovi is the president of the company and Shiimi was the national director of the awards. According to court documents the NTB concluded a written agreement on the tourism promotion package on 4 December 2015 with Mundial Telecom Sarl.

The All-Africa Kora Music Awards ceremony was scheduled to be held on 20 March 2016 in Namibia.

The show was initially scheduled to take place on 13 December 2015, but was postponed.

Under the contract the NTB had to pay the N$23.5 million on or before 10 December.

However, the first payment of N$5 million was made on 22 December and a second payment of another N$5 million was made on 23 December.

On 7 January 2016 another N$5 million was transferred and on 17 February N$8.5 million was transferred.

The money was paid into the bank account of Mundial Telecom in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The agreement guaranteed that the promotional television clips featuring Namibia would be delivered to all participating African countries' television stations by at least 20 January. And, even though there was no evidence of these promotions taking place two months before the scheduled awards ceremony, the NTB continued to make payments on several occasions.

The court documents go into the details of what the promotional package entailed.

According to the agreement between NTB and Mundial Telecom the package consisted of 26 promotional video clips that were to be televised in all the participating countries. These clips were supposed to be 60 seconds in duration and were to be shown two months before the awards ceremony.

Therefore it should have been done in January at the latest. The package also guaranteed that each promotional television clip would showcase the NTB with five-second visuals on the awards ceremony's promotional television clips, while Mundial Telecom was to make available the promotional clips to at least 30 participating African countries.

The contract states that Mundial Telecom was to provide a report 60 days after the awards ceremony on the coverage of the ceremony and that was to include the number of countries in which the ceremony was broadcast.

The package also had to include six promotional clips of 30 seconds each that were to be aired during the live broadcast of the ceremony.

These clips were to be produced and provided by the NTB.

Furthermore NTB was promised a prominent presence on the Kora website, with links to the NTB's website. Five verbal mentions were to be made by the hosts during the live broadcast of the ceremony.

It was also agreed that NTB would be allocated two full pages in the Kora magazine and that it would receive about 300 seats at the Kora Awards for important guests.

JUNE SHIMOUSHILI