President Jonathan’s N3b Grant To Nollywood Generates Controversies

A recent report has it that
the N3 billion grant given to Nollywood practitioners to avail them the opportunity of being the best, is raising some controversies. The disbursement and operation of this grant are directly supervised by the Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
News coming in from Nollywood is that of mistrust and discord on the manner in which N1 billion has been so far spent just among an extremely few Nollywood practitioners.
According to information gathered, the first stage of disbursement of the grant tailored for capacity building has been  completed by just 35 beneficiaries some of whom include.
Andy Amenechi, Paul Apel, Kingsley Omeoef among others, who have gone abroad for training facilitated by Project Act, a consultation company vetted by Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to disburse the grant for the capacity training for all cadres of practitioners within the film making industry which have gulped N300 million for just 35 people.
Right now, amongst the explanation that film makers are begging for borders on why practitioners from other guilds and associations were sidelined from benefiting from the capacity building training and how 35 people gulped the whooping sum of N300 million hence demanding for a published list of the beneficiaries from the association and guilds.
The second stage of disbursement for which N700 million has been set aside is – meant for production. However, beyond interviews, which they claimed is being carried out by nonprofessionals has only come out with shortlist of names while nobody has been given any money, probably in a swift reaction to the criticisms being generated, a statement was issued in Abuja by Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, spokesman for Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, revealing that N300 million was for two segments.
The first component is a training fund for N150 million dedicated to training and skills acquisition for Nollywood practitioners in all competencies along the value chain of the industry which include script writing, directing, production and design, special effects, lighting, sound HD techniques, acting, cinematography make up and editing among others.
The statement further disclosed that the second component was the capacity development fund which was also worth N150 million. The final stage of Project Act Nollywood is distribution which has N2 billion attached to it and questions are also raised how this stage would be handled.