New Era Publications Corporation (NEPC)

The New Era Publications Corporation (NEPC) is a state-owned publishing house responsible for producing New Era, one of Namibia’s national daily newspapers, alongside other print and digital publications. Founded in 1992 under the New Era Publication Corporation Act, NEPC operates both as a commercial publishing entity and as an official government communication outlet. Its publications play a dual role, presented as serving the public interest while functioning as a platform for government messaging. NEPC is headquartered in Windhoek.

Media assets

Publishing: New Era, Kundana

Ownership and governance

NEPC is a state statutory publisher, wholly state-owned and constituted as a corporation under the New Era Publication Corporation Act (Act No. 1 of 1992). Its board is appointed through ministerial and government processes under the Act, with appointments subject to Cabinet endorsement, and the board in turn appoints the Chief Executive Officer, who oversees day-to-day operations. As of 2026, the corporation is led by Chief Executive Officer Christof Maletsky, in post since 2020, with Dr John Sifani serving as board chairperson.

A long-running governance question is the proposed merger of NEPC with the Namibia Press Agency (NAMPA). 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, in a model reported to draw on Zimbabwe’s state-owned ZimPapers, with the NEPC and NAMPA brand names retained under a single holding entity provisionally referred to as the Namibia Multimedia Network, Namibia Content Corporation, or Content Conglomerate of Namibia. According to the State Media Monitor review, critics argued the merger could instead inflate the public wage bill through executive and board appointments, leading to parliamentary and civil-society scrutiny of the proposal during 2025, including concerns over transparency, the absence of an independent feasibility study, and the consolidation of state media. The Cabinet-approved merger had not been effected by the 2026/2027 budget cycle: NEPC and NAMPA continued to receive separate allocations and to operate under their own names.

Source of funding and budget

NEPC is heavily dependent on state subsidies, generating only modest revenue from advertising and commercial services, and financial transparency remains limited in the absence of publicly audited annual reports.

According to local media economists cited in the State Media Monitor baseline, the combined liabilities of NEPC and NAMPA were estimated at around NAD 154 million, with annual operating costs of close to NAD 75 million. In the 2026/2027 budget, motivated in the National Assembly in April 2026, NEPC’s allocation was reduced to NAD 22.5 million from about NAD 27 million the previous year, with the minister indicating that the corporation should leverage digital platforms to widen its reach. The corporation is accountable to Parliament through the MICT.

Editorial independence

NEPC’s flagship title, New Era, has frequently been described as a government-aligned publication. According to the State Media Monitor review, independent media monitors and academic studies have characterised it as a vehicle for state-sponsored messaging, particularly during election periods or moments of political sensitivity, with limited space for critical voices. There is no statute in Namibia guaranteeing the editorial independence of NEPC or its publications; editorial control sits within a state-owned statutory publisher whose board and chief executive are appointed through government-linked processes, and the State Media Monitor review indicates that editorial lines are aligned with government policy priorities.

The constraints on editorial autonomy inside the state-owned publisher were illustrated in 2023, when, as reported by the Committee to Protect Journalists, CEO Christof Maletsky suspended New Era managing editor Johnathan Beukes over an editorial critical of the judiciary, barring him from making public statements and from entering the newspaper’s offices; the episode drew a protest by the Namibia Media Professionals Union and a referral to the Media Ombudsman. The Media Ombudsman of Namibia accepts complaints from the public about all media outlets, including NEPC, 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, with a diverse privately owned press in which New Era competes against independent titles. The State Media Monitor’s SC classification reflects NEPC’s ownership and governance structure rather than the wider conditions for journalism in the country.

AI and digital policy

NEPC distributes its journalism beyond print through the New Era website and mobile platforms, and in the 2026/2027 budget the supervisory minister identified expanded digital reach as a priority for the corporation. 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 NEPC-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 editorial content or synthetic-media authentication.

May 2026