Five months ago on the 10th of August 2017, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture launched the ‘My Namibia Song’ Competition at the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (nbc).
The competition was aimed at encouraging Namibians to write and compose a song titled: ‘My Namibia’, which can evoke feelings of patriotism and national pride. The competition ran for a period of one month and 141 song submissions were received.
After the competition closed, a panel of independent judges was selected by the ‘My Namibia Song’ Technical Committee. The terms of reference for the judges included that they shortlist five top songs.
During the official launch of the shortlisted songs, Minister of ICT Tjekero Tweya said: “Today I am happy to be launching these shortlisted five songs to the public so that the public can vote for the best song. Public vote will make up 50% while the judges will retain the other 50%.”
All the five shortlisted songs have been given unique short codes. In order to vote a citizen just need to send the unique short code of their favorite song to 33033. The SMS cost NAD 3.
These songs will be played on nbc television and all its radio stations in order to reach out to all the citizens. “It is therefore my honor to declare the shortlisted songs and voting line officially launched and may I ask this great nation to partake in the voting” concluded Tweya.