Namibian Press Agency (NAMPA)

The Namibia Press Agency (NAMPA) is Namibia’s state-owned national news agency, supplying news and picture services to media outlets, institutions and the public at home and abroad. It was founded in 1987 as the Namibia Press Association, established as a partisan SWAPO press agency before independence, and was relaunched under its present name in 1991, then constituted as a statutory body under the Namibia Press Agency Act of 1992. Most Namibian media outlets rely on NAMPA’s services, particularly for international news, which it has redistributed from agencies including Reuters, AFP and AP. NAMPA is headquartered in Windhoek.

Media assets

News agency: NAMPA

Ownership and governance

NAMPA is a state statutory news agency, wholly state-owned and constituted as a juristic person under the Namibia Press Agency Act (Act No. 3 of 1992), within the MICT portfolio. Its Board of Directors is appointed by the Minister of Information and Communication Technology, and the Board in turn selects the Chief Executive Officer, who oversees the agency’s operations. Linus Chata served as Chief Executive Officer until mid-2025, when NAMPA announced his retirement at the end of a fixed term that ran to 30 June 2025; his successor was not publicly confirmed at the time of writing. According to the State Media Monitor review, while the agency has formal independence under its statute, its governance structure leaves senior appointments under ministerial and government control.

A long-running governance question is the proposed merger of NAMPA with the New Era Publications Corporation (NEPC). Cabinet first approved a plan to consolidate the two state media bodies in 2021, on the rationale of avoiding duplication and curbing spending, but the merger was repeatedly deferred. In May 2024, the MICT said it would undertake the consolidation as instructed by Cabinet, with the NAMPA and NEPC brand names to be retained under a single holding entity provisionally referred to in the State Media Monitor baseline as the Namibia Multimedia Network, Namibia Content Corporation, or Content Conglomerate of Namibia. The most tangible step toward integration came in November 2024, when NAMPA’s commercial-services head, Confidence Musariri, was briefly seconded to serve as managing editor of New Era, a move the agency attributed to “the evolving process of the merger”, but the secondment was revoked within days amid criticism that the consolidation could increase state control over public media. The Cabinet-approved merger had not been effected by the 2026/2027 budget cycle: NAMPA and NEPC continued to receive separate allocations and to operate under their own names.

Source of funding and budget

NAMPA depends primarily on state allocations, supplemented by subscription and commercial-service revenue; according to the State Media Monitor baseline, state subsidies account for an estimated 75–80% of the agency’s annual revenue, and its public financial reporting has been sporadic.

In the 2026/2027 budget, motivated in the National Assembly in April 2026, NAMPA’s allocation was reduced to NAD 22.5 million from about NAD 27 million the previous year, with the minister indicating that the agency should expand its own revenue sources and commercial partnerships to reduce its reliance on government funding. According to local media economists cited in the State Media Monitor baseline, the combined liabilities of NAMPA and NEPC were estimated at around NAD 154 million, with annual operating costs of close to NAD 75 million. The agency is accountable to Parliament through the MICT.

Editorial independence

NAMPA’s position on editorial independence is contested. The agency’s leadership has maintained that its reporters are free to cover stories critical of the government and that it has not disciplined journalists for investigative reporting on public office-bearers. According to the State Media Monitor review, however, the Editors’ Forum of Namibia has challenged the agency’s claims of independence, citing institutional editorial bias and a lack of transparency in sourcing and story selection, and in early 2025 the Media Ombudsman of Namibia cited NAMPA in complaints involving censorship and biased political coverage, particularly relating to the treatment of opposition viewpoints. There is no statute guaranteeing the agency’s editorial independence, and its board and chief executive are appointed through government-linked processes.

The Media Ombudsman of Namibia accepts complaints from the public about all media outlets, including NAMPA, and may recommend corrective measures, but its role is advisory and does not guarantee protection from government influence. These constraints sit within a comparatively open national media environment: Namibia placed 23rd of 180 countries in the RSF 2026 World Press Freedom Index (score 76.97), second in Africa. The State Media Monitor’s SC classification reflects NAMPA’s ownership and governance structure rather than the wider conditions for journalism in the country.

AI and digital policy

NAMPA distributes its news and picture services to subscribers through digital channels, and in the 2026/2027 budget the supervisory minister identified the expansion of the agency’s revenue sources and content distribution as a priority. The agency has also pursued international content-sharing arrangements, including a cooperation memorandum signed with Russia’s TASS news agency in 2023. At the national level, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology launched the National Digital Strategy 2025–2029 in August 2025, and Namibia’s first Artificial Intelligence Readiness Assessment Report — compiled by the National Commission on Research, Science and Technology with UNESCO support — was launched in the same month.

No NAMPA-specific published policy on AI-generated content, synthetic-media disclosure, or content-provenance standards such as C2PA was identified, and Namibia’s media-regulatory framework does not yet contain sector-specific provisions governing AI-generated news content or synthetic-media authentication.

May 2026