Deal sheet
- Status
- AN NCAC COPYRIGHT INSPECTOR TOLD GAMBIAN PRESS IN FEBRUARY 2025 THAT THE COUNTRY'S COLLECTING SOCIETY WAS "A MAJOR STEP FORWARD" AND REPORTED AS NOW FULLY OPERATIONAL. SIXTEEN MONTHS LATER, THE PERMANENT SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY THAT OVERSEES IT TOLD A GOVERNMENT EVENT THE MINISTRY "WILL OPERATIONALIZE" THE SAME BODY, IN THE FUTURE TENSE, WITH NO RESOLVING EVENT FOUND IN BETWEEN.
The Collecting Society of The Gambia (CSG) is the body Section 66 of the Copyright Act 2004 establishes "for authors and other owners of copyright" in The Gambia, run by a nine-member board drawn from the Musicians Union of The Gambia, the Gambia Association of Music Producers, the Gambia Association of Writers, the Gambia Association of Book Publishers, performing artistes, film producers and the National Centre for Arts and Culture (NCAC), which sits on the board but does not run the society.
THE EARLY RECORD (2012-2015). In February 2012, NCAC's then Director of Copyright, Hassoum Ceesay, described a society still being built: registration of works had begun in the second quarter of 2011, with 17 registrants on the books by December that year, and the NCAC was still recruiting the artists' associations needed to seat the society's board. CSG's constituent congress followed in May 2013, electing a nine-member board representing six national arts associations. By September 2015, in a piece Ceesay wrote for Music In Africa, the board was "fully constituted and has since started work," the office had begun operating "with volunteers," and a three-year work plan existed, to be implemented "when finances are available." That piece's own prospects section said the society "should be operational sooner than later," language that reads as an aspiration, not a status report.
THE 2019 RECORD. Four years on, NCAC's then Creative Industry Director, Sheikeh Omar Jallow, told Foroyaa that exactly one Gambian artist had licensed his work with CSG: the musician Hakim. Jallow attributed the shortfall to artists not understanding "what is going on in the world" and to weak artist associations, not to any failure on CSG's own part, and said NCAC's main focus was building those associations' membership. No other licensing or membership figure for CSG, before or after this date, was found in any source checked.
THE 2020 RECORD. An October 2020 editorial in The Point described CSG as "operational alongside the Copyright Office" and said the tourism minister wanted artistes to start receiving royalties in 2021. No distribution figure, membership count or collection total accompanied the claim.
THE NOVEMBER 2024 RECORD. An opinion piece in The Standard, published 18 November 2024, said CSG "has failed to fulfil its mandate since inception," citing a lack of a functioning secretariat and chronic underfunding. It reported that an NCAC budget proposal for a CSG secretariat went neither approved nor followed up; that a Ministry of Tourism and Culture cabinet paper on CSG did not advance; that CSG had tried engaging the President of the Republic directly, with little result; and that a stalled Copyright Amendment Bill before the National Assembly, which the piece said would let private collective-management organisations operate alongside CSG and move CMO supervision from the Ministry of Tourism to the Ministry of Justice, had gone nowhere. CSG itself, the piece said, opposes the private-CMO idea and wants to be strengthened as the primary CMO first.
THE FEBRUARY 2025 RECORD. Less than three months later, on 13 February 2025, the Alkamba Times quoted NCAC Copyright Inspector Fatoumata Camara calling the body "a major step forward for Gambian creatives" and saying "artists deserve to be compensated when their work is used commercially." The article's own narration, not a direct quote from Camara, went further, describing the society (which it called the "Gambia Collecting Society") as now fully operational and run by artists. No funding, secretariat, bill-passage or other resolution of the problems the November 2024 piece had named was reported anywhere in between.
THE JUNE 2026 RECORD. On 15 June 2026, at a Creative Industries Roadmap validation event at the Senegambia Beach Hotel, Permanent Secretary Amie Njie-Joof of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture told The Point: "We will operationalize the Collecting Society of The Gambia to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights." The verb is future tense, sixteen months after Gambian press had already described the same body as fully operational, and the statement gave no timeline.
THE OCTOBER 2026 RECORD. On 21 October 2026, The Point reported that the National Assembly had approved a motion, tabled by Attorney General and Minister of Justice Dawda A. Jallow, to ratify the 1996 WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, which the Attorney General said would let "Gambian collecting societies" (plural, CSG not named specifically) collect royalties from digital uses and join international payment-distribution systems, alongside planned amendments to the Copyright Act 2004 to be drafted jointly by the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, and NCAC. As of this report, that ratification instrument had not yet been deposited with WIPO and the Copyright Act amendments had not yet been drafted.
NET FINDING. Two different government officials, from two different ministries overseeing the same statutory body, made directly conflicting public statements about CSG's operational status sixteen months apart: "fully operational" (February 2025, as narrated around an NCAC inspector's quotes) against "will operationalize" (June 2026, a named Permanent Secretary's own words, future tense). No funding resolution, secretariat appointment, bill passage or other dated event bridges the two. The most recent reporting checked, from October 2026, still describes the legal and institutional capacity for Gambian collecting societies to gather digital-use royalties as a pending project, not a completed one.
- Type
- Licensing
- Parties
- Collecting Society of The Gambia
- Amount
- GMD Not disclosed. No annual collection total and no distribution total has ever been published by the Collecting Society of The Gambia (CSG), under any tariff, in any source checked, across reporting spanning 2012 to 2026. The only concrete figure found for CSG's actual activity is a 2019 claim, attributed to then Creative Industry Director Sheikeh Omar Jallow, that exactly one Gambian artist (named as Hakim) had licensed his work with CSG at that point; no later membership, licensing or payout total was found in any source checked between 2020 and 2026.
- Rights covered
- STATUTORY COLLECTING-SOCIETY OPERATIONAL-STATUS RECORD ONLY. No master recording, composition or publishing right changes ownership, or is assigned, licensed, administered or distributed differently as a result of anything recorded here. Section 66 of The Gambia's Copyright Act 2004 establishes CSG as a body corporate "for authors and other owners of copyright" and makes it responsible, except as otherwise provided, for "collecting and distributing the royalties and other remuneration accruing to its members" under the Act; Section 47 is the underlying economic right, to royalties when a sound recording is used in public performance, a public place, broadcasting or an audiovisual work. Section 56 separately makes the National Centre for Arts and Culture (NCAC) "responsible for the administration of this Act" generally, including public education and an international-conventions watch; NCAC is not itself the collecting body. This record documents what named officials from each body have said, at different dates, about whether CSG's narrower statutory function is actually running. It is not a rights transaction.
- Territory
- Gambia
- Announced
- 2026-06-15
- Primary document
- Trade press
- Sources
- The Point (Gambia), "New roadmaps set course for tourism growth," by Adama Jallow, published 15 June 2026. THE TURNING-POINT RECORD this deal turns on: Permanent Secretary Amie Njie-Joof of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture told a Creative Industries Roadmap validation event at the Senegambia Beach Hotel, "We will operationalize the Collecting Society of The Gambia to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights," a future-tense commitment with no timeline given, sixteen months after Gambian press had already described the same body as fully operational. Fetched and read in full. · The Standard (Gambia), opinion by Essa Jallow, "Revitalizing The Collecting Society Of The Gambia: Unlocking Potential For Creators And National Growth," published 18 November 2024. THE "FAILED ITS MANDATE" RECORD. States CSG has failed to fulfil its mandate since inception, cites a lack of a functioning secretariat and chronic underfunding, an unapproved NCAC secretariat-budget proposal, a stalled Ministry of Tourism and Culture cabinet paper, an unsuccessful direct appeal to the President, and a stalled Copyright Amendment Bill that would let private CMOs operate alongside CSG and move CMO supervision to the Ministry of Justice. Fetched and read in full. · The Alkamba Times, "TAT Exclusive: From Music to Manuscripts: Are Gambian Creators Truly Protected?," published 13 February 2025. THE "FULLY OPERATIONAL" RECORD. Quotes NCAC Copyright Inspector Fatoumata Camara calling the body "a major step forward for Gambian creatives"; the article's own narration (not a Camara quote) describes it as now fully operational and run by artists, and calls it the "Gambia Collecting Society." Fetched and read in full. · Foroyaa, "'Only One Gambian Artist Has Licensed His Work With CSG' Creative Industry Director," by Makutu Manneh, published 25 September 2019. Quotes then Creative Industry Director Sheikeh Omar Jallow naming the one licensed artist as Hakim and attributing the low take-up to artists' own lack of awareness, plus a separate statement from then Acting NCAC Director Hassoum Ceesay on the council's copyright work. Fetched and read in full. · The Point (Gambia), "NCAC mandated to enforce copyright laws," published 17 February 2012 (last updated 21 August 2020). Quotes then Director of Copyright Hassoum Ceesay; describes the still-forming collecting society (not yet named "CSG" in this piece), 17 registrants as of December 2011, and NCAC's role under Section 56 of the Act. Fetched and read in full. · The Point (Gambia), editorial "On royalties for artistes," published 30 October 2020 (updated 11 May 2021). Describes CSG as operational alongside the Copyright Office and reports the tourism minister's wish for royalty payments to begin in 2021; gives no figures. Fetched and read in full. · Music In Africa Foundation, "Copyrights and music royalty collection in The Gambia," by Hassoum Ceesay, published 9 September 2015. Describes the May 2013 constituent congress, the nine-member board "fully constituted and has since started work," the office operating "with volunteers," and a three-year work plan pending finance; its own prospects section says the society "should be operational sooner than later." Fetched and read in full. · The Point (Gambia), "Gambia moves to strengthen protection for musicians against online piracy," by Jankey Ceesay, published 21 October 2026. Reports the National Assembly's approval of a motion by Attorney General Dawda A. Jallow to ratify the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, stated to let Gambian collecting societies collect digital-use royalties and join international distribution systems, alongside planned Copyright Act amendments by the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, and NCAC; does not name CSG specifically. Fetched and read in full. · National Centre for Arts and Culture, hosted full text of The Gambia's Copyright Act, 2004. THE STATUTORY TEXT. Section 47 (right to royalties for public performance, broadcast or audiovisual use of a sound recording), Section 56 (NCAC, "the Centre," responsible for administration of the Act generally), Section 57 (NCAC's functions), Section 66 (establishment of CSG and its duty, except as otherwise provided, to collect and distribute royalties accruing to its members), Section 67 (CSG's nine-member governing board). Fetched as a binary PDF and extracted with pypdf; read in full across 77 pages.
Read this before citing: WHAT COULD NOT BE ESTABLISHED, STATED PLAINLY:
(1) NO COLLECTION OR DISTRIBUTION TOTAL. No source checked gives a dalasi figure for what CSG has collected or distributed, in any year, from any category of user, under the Copyright Act 2004 or any later instrument.
(2) THE "FULLY OPERATIONAL" CHARACTERISATION IS THE REPORTER'S FRAMING, NOT A DIRECT QUOTE. The Alkamba Times' February 2025 description of CSG as "fully operational and run by artists" is the article's own narration. Copyright Inspector Fatoumata Camara's own quoted words in that piece ("a major step forward," "artists deserve to be compensated") are more general and do not themselves claim full operational status. This record treats the "fully operational" framing as attributable to the outlet, not to Camara personally, while still noting it as the clearest operational claim found for that period.
(3) CAMARA IS AN NCAC OFFICIAL, NOT A NAMED CSG OFFICER. The Copyright Act's Section 67 gives CSG its own governing structure, a President of the General Assembly as chairperson and an Executive Secretary. No source checked between 2024 and 2026 quotes either officer, by name, on CSG's operational status; every recent on-record statement found comes from NCAC (Camara) or the Ministry of Tourism and Culture (Njie-Joof), both of which sit beside CSG in the statutory scheme, not inside its own executive.
(4) WHETHER THE "COPYRIGHT AMENDMENT BILL" AND THE "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY BILL 2025" (FORMERLY 2023) ARE THE SAME INSTRUMENT COULD NOT BE CONFIRMED. The Standard's November 2024 piece describes a stalled "Copyright Amendment Bill" that would let private CMOs operate alongside CSG and move CMO supervision from the Ministry of Tourism to the Ministry of Justice. Separate 2024-2026 reporting on the Intellectual Property Bill (tabled as the 2023 Bill, re-tabled as the 2025 Bill, in Assembly Business Committee as of mid-2026) covers industrial property, geographical indications and an IP tribunal, and none of the five further reports read here mentions CSG, private CMOs or a ministry-supervision change for copyright specifically. The two may be the same bill under different names, or two different pieces of legislation; this record does not assume either.
(5) THE "ONLY ONE ARTIST" FIGURE IS SINGLE-SOURCED AND SIX YEARS OLD. The 2019 claim that exactly one artist (Hakim) had licensed with CSG comes from one named official, Sheikeh Omar Jallow, in one interview, and was not independently verified by this desk or corroborated by any later source. No membership or licensing total for any year since 2019 was found.
(6) A NAMING VARIANCE, NOT A SECOND ORGANISATION. The Alkamba Times calls the body the "Gambia Collecting Society"; the Copyright Act and every other source checked calls it the "Collecting Society of The Gambia" (CSG). This record treats both as the same statutory body.
(7) NO WORKING CSG WEBSITE. A candidate domain, csgambia.org, surfaces in search results but does not resolve, confirmed independently via direct connection test during this run; CSG's only reachable public presence is Facebook (facebook.com/csgambia). This record relies entirely on third-party press coverage and the statutory text for CSG's own activity.
(8) NO RIGHTS CHANGED HANDS. This record documents a statutory collecting society's claimed operational status and a conflict between two government officials' public statements about it. No master recording, composition or publishing right is owned, assigned, licensed, administered or distributed differently as a result of anything recorded here.
