Cosoma, academic writers iron out issues
Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) and Malawi Union of Academic and Non-fiction Authors (Muana) over the weekend resolved their long-standing difference over funding.
This happened was during Mauna’s annual general meeting (AGM) held at Liwonde Development Centre in Machinga, which partly turned into a grievance platform by Muana members.
Muana took Cosoma to task on why it was delaying to fulfil its pledge to fund the union.
In fact, the issue of funding appeared on the second item of AGM’s business brief to keep count of its relevance.
Reads the business brief: “Muana as an organisation has a donor by the name NFF. For the past years, Muana has received K25 157 289 from NFF. This was being contributed to Muana at different time intervals. However, Cosoma as a mother of Muana promised to fund Muana a certain amount of money of which no penny has been given in all the past years.”
Both Muana president Max Iphani and Cosoma’s senior licencing officer Rosario Kamanga acknowledged the funding pledge.
Iphani said the funding pledge, which was made for the one and half years ago, was overdue; hence, they saw it necessary to raise the issue at the AGM.
Kamanga attributed the delay to logistical challenges which hampered its collection and distributing system of royalties accrued under reprographic rights.
