The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Dr Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, has inaugurated the governing boards of three agencies under his ministry with a call on them to institute policies to promote the sector.
The agencies are the National Film Authority (NFA), National Commission on Culture (NCC) and Ghana National Theatre.
The 14-member NFA board is chaired bythe President’s nominee, Mr David Dontoh, while the 14-member NCC board is chaired by the Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Dr Awal, with the nine-member board of Ghana National Theatre chaired by the President’s nominee, Nana Fredua-Agyemang Ofori-Atta.
Speaking in separate ceremonies in Accra on Tuesday during the inauguration of the boards, Dr Awal charged them to deliver their mandate effectively to make the institutions they were leading strong, transparent and responsive to support the government’s developmental agenda.
The Minister urged the NFA board to leverage the power of film to help create jobs for the youth in the country.
He charged them to help make Ghana a hub for film production in West Africa and entreated them to produce not less than 200 films every year.
“We have all the attributes to be a film hub in West Africa, we have diversified culture, over 29 castles and forts, with customs and traditions, very good landscape and ecosystem. Let’s leverage that and make Ghana attractive location for film production,” he stated.
Dr Awal also tasked them to institutea strategic plan by February next yearto make the film industry number one contributor to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“Our sector is number three in terms of GDP, we want the Ministry to be number one contributor to GDP, we want to generate five billion dollars every year for the Ghanaian economy,” he added.
He said the ministry was working hard to get a studio and script bank where film producers could shoot and write scripts to enhance their talents.
To the NCC board, he entreated them to develop a Cultural Policy by June next year to put Ghana on the cultural map.
He said the government would support the NCC to deliver on its mandate and would soon rehabilitate all the cultural centres in the country, starting with five next year, adding that without a good cultural asset, the country could not attract lot of tourists.
“Without these cultural centers, we cannot express our cultural identity and so I want to charge the board to work differently and come out to make sure that 75 per cent culture has a different model, a profitable model that can make culture in this country more profitable,” he stated.
To the Ghana National Theatre, the Minister said theaters played a very important role in propagating government policies and projects through role play, which also helped in shaping national development.
He encouraged them to collaborate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration to come up with innovative ways and ideas to support and change the face of theater in the country.
All the three chairpersons of the boards thanked the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo -Addo, for the confidence reposed in them and pledged to deliver on their mandate.
BY VIVIAN ARTHUR
