Stakeholders in the creative industry have enjoined the Federal Government to endorse the Nigeria Entertainment Economic Roundtable as an annual event and incorporate it into the annual calendar of programmes of the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
They made this known during first Nigeria Entertainment Economic Roundtable conference, which held in Lagos, last week.
They disclosed that there is need to involve the leadership of the roundtable in the successor plan of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) as it pertains to the creative, culture and tourism sectors.
At the end of the conference, some of the resolutions reached included the need to establish three key projects to sustain the deliverables from the roundtable, namely, the Nigerian Entertainment Bank (NEB), geared towards industry-specific financing, the Nigerian Institute of Entertainment (NIE), for standardization and quality control, and the Nigerian Entertainment City (NEC), a one-stop-shop for entertainment endowments as a nation, which will serve the short-term and long-term interests of Nigerian culture, tourism, hospitality, entertainment and creative sectors.
Others include: the need for the government to reform the security architecture of Nigeria to accommodate the restoration of nightlife in our city centres, which will enable the industry to thrive and flourish sustainably. The need for the government to relax the conditions attached to assessing government funding, for creative and entertainment sector purposes, considering the peculiar limitations of aspiring and young artistes.
The need for government to formulate policies, through loans and grants that will encourage, young talents to excel in the industry with no stringent collaterals.
The need to reactivate somewhat moribund Motion Pictures ACT, which will help to regulate the sector and entrench international best practices among practitioners in the industry.
The need for Federal Government, through Ministry of Budget and National Planning, to reach out to State Governments, particularly their Culture and Tourism and Budget and Planning Ministries for synergy, harmony in target-setting, project implementation and optimal outcomes.
And for the purpose of sustainability, the need for government to support the Roundtable with funding of its annual budget.
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said the federal government is ready to assist if there is any problem preventing the sector from taking full advantage of the incentive.
“ The ‘Pioneer Status’ is granted to companies making investments in qualifying industries and products as tax holiday from the payment of corporate income tax and withholding tax on divided from pioneer profits for an initial period of three years, extendable for one or two additional years.
This covers music production, publishing and distribution (including online digital distribution); photography; production and postproduction of digital content for motion pictures, videos, television programmes, commercials, distribution and exhibition (digital movies, animation, videos, tv programmes and commercials); publishing of books (copyrighted books) and development and Publishing of ready-made software (operating systems, software applications and computer games)