{"id":402527,"date":"2018-02-19T13:39:50","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T13:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=402527"},"modified":"2018-02-19T13:42:56","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T13:42:56","slug":"creative-arts-bill-needs-critical-review-focab-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2018\/02\/creative-arts-bill-needs-critical-review-focab-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Creative Arts Bill needs critical review \u2013 FOCAB"},"content":{"rendered":"
A pressure group for the creative arts industry, Federation of Concerned Arts Professionals (FOCAP), has called on powers that be to make some important changes in the Creative Arts Bill before it is implemented.<\/p>\n
Their call comes after the interim Creative Arts Council organized a stakeholders meeting for creative artistes on 9th<\/sup>\u00a0February, 2018 to discuss the bill before it is passed into law.<\/p>\n In a press statement, FOCAP critically analyses the draft bill, and suggests alternative provisions.<\/p>\n Read the full statement from FOCAP below:<\/strong><\/p>\n On the February 9 2018, FOCAP attended a stakeholder\u2019s meeting at the Accra Tourist Information Centre, hosted by the Interim Creative Arts Council.<\/p>\n The event was well attended with a lot of industry big wigs in attendance. We had the privilege of seeing for the first time, the \u201cCREATIVE INDUSTRY ACT 2014\u201d which the stakeholder\u2019s meeting was to discuss and bring up suggestions on the changes or otherwise to be made in the draft bill.<\/p>\n A lot of suggestions came across from various participants and the meeting ended well.<\/p>\n As an advocacy, research and pressure group, FOCAP has taken time to scrutinize the draft bill and we have come to the conclusion that the passing of this draft bill as it stands would be very detrimental to the creative arts sector. We have argued over a period that creative arts should not have a lot of political interference and especially the creative arts council. We believe the creative arts council should be treated just as other councils.<\/p>\n These councils are quasi government bodies which are run and controlled by players in the sector with just a little governmental stake. With this background, FOCAP would like to bring to the attention of all stakeholders, portions of the current \u201cCREATIVE INDUSTRY ACT 2014\u201d which should be changed with immediate effect.<\/p>\n Section 4 of the \u201cCREATIVE INDUSTRY ACT 2014\u201d talks about the governing body of the scheme, as in fig. 1 below;<\/p>\n Fig 1.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Obviously this puts the entire creative arts council under the control of the Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture and the Minister of Trade since they are the chairpersons of the governing body. This we find highly inappropriate since these positions change based on political dispensation, we believe if left like this would derail the creative industry agenda for the country.<\/p>\n Our Suggestions<\/strong><\/p>\n Just like other councils set up to govern various sectors of the country, it would be imperative to emulate the best. We believe that the \u201cHEALTH PROFESSIONS REGULATORY BODIES ACT, 2013\u201d ACT 857 Section 4 in fig 2 below sets a good precedence for this;<\/p>\n Fig 2.<\/p>\n