The House of Representatives Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Values, on Wednesday in Abuja, frowned at the poor funding of the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB).
The committee particularly frowned at the reduction of the board’s capital expenditure from N318 million to N62 million in the 2021 budget.
Chairman of the committee, Odebunmi Olusegun (APC-Oyo), at the 2021 budget defence said that the committee would take up the matter with Budget Office and the Ministry of Finance.
Earlier, Mr Thomas Adedayo, the Executive Director, National Film and Video Censors Board, decried poor funding of the agency.
He said that the budgetary allocation for the board’s 2021 operations is very low to meet the mandate
“Our personnel cost for 2021 is N1.56 billion, overhead is N152.1 million and the capital is N62.08 million.
“What was appropriated for us by the Minister of Information and Culture is N381 million which we defended before the Ministry of Finance and the Budget Office.
“But what is being presented to you now comes down to N62 million which is far below what is expected to maintain the height which we have reached in terms of our mandate which is regulating the film and video industry.
“A couple of times, we have to end up in court, we have offices across the country and the six geopolitical zonal structure and it is only the office in Lagos that is not a rented apartment.
“We have made efforts at getting some from the seizure from the EFCC and ICPC but none has happened,” he said.
Adedayo said that less then N100,000 was allocated for digitisation in the budget line, saying that it would be impossible to digitise a library that has over 50,000 archives in terms of Nigerian films and videos with such an amount.
He said that before the reduction in the capital expenditure, the agency had already made preparation to engage the National Youth Council of Nigeria and Federal Universities across the geopolitical zones.
He said that only N77,000 was allocation for such engagement for the South-West Zone and N46,000 for the South-South zone of the country.
He appealed to the lawmakers to intervene in the matter to enable the agency to carry out its mandate effectively.
