Mdundo says Tanzania’s Selcom Wireless responsible for delayed artist royalties

Largest local music platform for East Africa, Mdundo which helps artists monetize their music by allowing users to pay on every download has denied any wrongdoing after a number of artisits in the country claimed their royalties were never remitted as agreed in the contract.

The firm has accused its local partner, Selcom of failing to take responsibility when the system it uses to pay royalties to artists in the country had a fault that saw many artists losing their hard-earned cash while a number received nothing in their accounts or much less than they had sold on the site.

Some artists nd some of their fans went to Mdundo to claim their pay blaming the firm for failing to meet its conditions.

One person tweeted,

In a letter to the artists, the firm said it hired the services of a company in Tanzania to pay out its artists in Tanzania as there we no cross-border system to allow the Nairobi-based firm to pay artists in Tanzania directly via mobile money.
“In this case we acquired the services of a company named Selcom Wireless based in Dar es Salaam to complete the transactions on our behalf. All payments from Mdundo were sent out on Friday the 23rd of January way before the deadline we had put for the 25th of January 2015.”Without our knowledge the Selcom system sent out the wrong amounts to a number of artists, causing a mixup. As a result we had to recall the process. However, there are some individuals who decided to help themselves to the money and withdrew it straight away,” the firm announced.Apparently, some of the artists who got money which wasnt theirs refused to give it back and many others switched off their phones to avoid confrontation or as a move to dodge calls from Mdundo.

“We wrote a letter of complaint to Selcom Wireless to refund us the amount their system lost, but have since refused to take responsibility, even when it clearly states in their contract that they have to provide us with the best service,” added Mdundo in the letter.

Selcom Wireless is yet to respond to our request for information on this but the firm owns and operates Tanzania’s biggest independent multi-product POS network powering over 7,000 terminals and serves over
300,000 transactions per day for utilities among others.

With no word from Selcom on responsibility, Mdundo says its now looking into ways to get the money back to pay all artists that have still not been paid. The firm says it’s taking responsibility to tomaintain its high standards of service and reputation.