The industry had longed for the council to be established, that even Kast did a 1000km walk advocating for the Council, among other things, the creative sector’s needs. For many, the much-anticipated arts council represented a promise that musicians, actors, dancers, and painters would no longer stand on the periphery of national development. Yet five years later, that promise feels broken. The institution, once envisioned as the country’s tactical weapon in the plans to diversify the economy from diamonds, has instead become a dysfunctional disillusionment. The NACB’s mandate was straightforward: to act as the custodian of Botswana’s creative economy by providing grants, facilitating growth, and promoting fair governance in the arts. But insiders and artists now describe it as an institution crippled by boardroom disputes, political interference, and allegations of maladministration.
“The Council was supposed to be a bridge between artists and government. Instead, it has become a wall that keeps us out,” said one of the artists. In Parliament, Minister of Sport and Arts (MOSA) Jacob Kelebeng conceded that part of NACB’s struggle stems from the absence of formal regulations to guide its operations. Without these, the Council has operated in a grey zone, neither fully autonomous nor directly accountable to the Ministry. The result has been years of confusion, overlapping authority, and a growing disconnect between the Council and the people it was meant to represent. For Botswana’s artists, patience has now worn thin. The NACB, they say, has not lived up to its promise of fostering an environment where creativity can flourish sustainably. Instead, it has become synonymous with bureaucracy and exclusion. Since 2020, there have been calls, both whispered and public, for the dissolution of the current board, with many arguing that the Council should be rebuilt from the ground up. “The Council doesn’t work for us, it has turned into an elite club, not a platform for artists,” said a veteran musician.
