‘How N3bn Nollywood grant will be spent’

• Written by  Akintayo Abodunrin
• Sunday, 05 May 2013 00:00

CONSULTATIONS have started between the Federal Government and playerws in the film industry on how to deploy the N3 billion ‘Project Nollywood’ grant made available by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Early March when President Goodluck Jonathan announced the N3billion Project Nollywood grant, some thought the money would end up like the $200million intervention fund for the creative industry the President made available in 2010.
Accessing the money administered by the Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM) and Bank of Industry (BOI) has been tough and despite President Jonathan saying the Ministries of Finance and Culture would administer the $3 billion, some filmmakers were not too impressed.
However, indications that it will not be the same old story with the grant  emerged on Saturday, April 27 when Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Culture Minister, Edem Duke, had a town hall with heads of guilds / associations, filmmakers and investors.
About 200 participants deliberated on how the money would be disbursed and accessed at the meeting held at Eko Hotels, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Though journalists were barred from the deliberation, they were duly briefed about what transpired by Okonjo-Iweala, Duke and the heads of some of the guilds after the meeting.
“What we came here to do is to continue to further the initiative of Mr President in trying to support our creative arts industry, particularly Nollywood,” the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy began. “The idea is to recognise the talent in this industry and the fact that it’s a generator of jobs for our young. As you know, the industry has generated over 200,000 direct jobs, one million indirect jobs, $250million equivalent in value and we believe that we could double and triple all this if government has some supportive measure to help revitalise the industry.
“So, the idea is to encourage the sustained growth of the industry; to help them deal with the bottlenecks in terms of intellectual property right and problems related to piracy. To help them deal with capacity building, quality and to encourage them in general to up the game in the industry, so to speak. So we have been brainstorming on the amount that the president put forward and how best to use it.”
On what the meeting agreed to use the money for, Okonjo-Iweala said it would be spent on distribution, capacity building, script writing and production. “We agreed that this money will go to support certain things. First, getting distribution right.  Second, for capacity building in the industry. Third, encouraging creativity through reviewing and having a competition for scripts and production.
Those are some of the ideas on the table,” she said.
Contributing, Duke reiterated the importance of Nollwood for Nigeria and Africa.  He said, “Government’s realisation of the importance of this sector, apart from what has been enumerated by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, is to the effect that this sector has now become a major pillar in government’s cultural diplomacy to the extent that Nigerians and Africans in the Diaspora have started to reconnect with the continent and Nigeria using Nollywood as the channel of communication. And we find interest generated not just from Hollywood and Bollywood but from the Caribbean, from South America where you have huge historical connection between Nigeria and the Diaspora.
“Nollywood has become a major factor in many of these people redefining their own origin and a self esteem that this sector is bringing to Africans in the Diaspora. It is therefore critical that the home industry must be strengthened and must be provided with the handholding that is critical and in the hope that it will also help us in the bigger agenda of creating a better image for Nigeria.”
Asked how the money would be accessed by interested filmmakers, Okonjo-Iweala said that though some modalities have been spelt out, discussion is still ongoing. She, however, assured that whatever model is adopted will be transparent.  “We have spelled out some [modalities] depending on whether it’s for capacity building or production, script writing and so on. We are still discussing these categories of support but it’s going to be a very open, merit-based level playing field. We are going to have web-based access for each category; people will apply through the web similar to what we do for U-WIN. There will be an independent panel of judges that will judge submissions for each category and pick the winners and so on. It’s going to be a very merit based approach. But we have still to hone it. We are still discussing after this town hall whether to merge, or collapse some of the categories or just to focus on one or two but that’s what we have for now.”
The Minister also allayed fears that the grant will over ride the $200million released earlier. “No, what we discussed in there is that this fund should be catalytic. It is meant to leverage on that $200million and more sources of funding for the industry.” She added that some fiscal policies including tax incentives for investors were also discussed during the meeting.
On the issue of strengthening the Nigerian Copyright Commission to fight piracy, Chief Duke assured that government will play its part but also sought stakeholders support and cooperation.
Some heads of guilds who jointly briefed reporters with the ministers and who expressed happiness with the deliberation included Gab Okoye, Zik Zulu Okafor, Stephanie Okereke and  Andy Amenechi.