Minister assures implementation of Creative Industry reportThe Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has pledged to implement the recommendations contained in the report of the Implementation Committee for Post-COVID-19 Initiatives Committee on the Creative Industry.

While receiving the report in his office last Thursday, the Minister assured that the Government will not disappoint the stakeholders in the Creative Industry. “I can assure you that we will study the report and commence its implementation in earnest,” he said.

Alhaji Mohammed commended the Committee for its wide consultation with a broad spectrum of stakeholders in the Creative Industry in order to secure their buy-in and ensure inclusiveness as well as for their painstaking work that culminated in the report.

 In his remarks, the Chairman of the Committee and the Director-General of the National Council for Arts and Culture, Otunba Segun Runsewe, said the Implementation Committee set up 14 clusters to collate the views of all the players in the Creative Industry, with a view to drafting immediate, medium and long-term implementation plan for the turnaround of the Creative Sector, which was badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Otunba Runsewe, who thanked the Minister for his foresight in setting up the committee, noted that it was the first time any government will engage the entire spectrum of the Creative Industry in order to chart a course for the development of the industry.

The committee was inaugurated  by the minister on August 18th, 2020, to design an implementation plan on immediate and short-term relief for the Creative Industry in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic (Short Term); design a Policy Framework for Tax Relief for the various sectors in the Creative Industry, if it is identified as one of the measures aimed at achieving immediate and short-term relief for the Industry, and to work out a detailed implementation plan for a long-term intervention for the overall development of the Creative industry in Nigeria (long term).

 Other members of the Implementation Committee are Ali Baba (Deputy Chairman), Anita Eboigbe, Baba Agba, and Joe Mutah (Secretary).