Ghana has potential for quality film production-Anibaba

Accra, March 31, GNA=96Mr Moses Anibaba, British Council

Director for Ghana, has expressed confidence in the country's

creative industry saying it had the potential to meet demand for

quality and innovation production in the television and film

industry. Though the creative industry, particularly the television and

film industry, had badly been criticised recently for profanity,

pornography and poor quality programmes, Mr Anibaba insisted

that quality training and monitoring would push talented

entrepreneurs to unleash their potentials. He was speaking at the graduation ceremony for the Fourth

Creative Enterprise Training Programme co-organised by British

Council (BC) and the University of Ghana Business School

(UGBS) in Accra on Thursday. Mr Anibaba described Ghana as a country endowed with

many talented people in the creative industry and recommended

that capacity building and skill-honing programmes was needed

to mentor the citizenry for national development. "Ghanaians are very talented=85People are looking for quality

and innovation in the film industry and Ghana has the potential to

meet the expectation", he said. Mr Anibaba expressed hope that the graduands would

practice the things they had learnt to create a difference in the

creative industry. The Creative Enterprise training programme is the initiative of

BC and UGBS which began in 2009 with the aim of providing

managerial and entrepreneurial skills for persons in the creative

sector. The UGBS created the Enterprise Development Services

(EDS) to provide consultation, training and mentorship

programmes for players in the Small and Medium scale

Enterprises (SMEs) and personnel in the creative industry to

grow their businesses. Mrs Majorie Beeko, EDS Business Development Manager of

UGBS, said the four-week training programme had equipped the

graduands with the ability to protect their intellectual property,

business contracts and had exposed them to negotiating and

networking skills and the Ghana's business regulatory framework

as well. She expressed confidence that the modules on business

planning, costing and pricing, basic knowledge in financing and

business management would equip graduands to excel in their

fields of endeavours. Mrs Beeko said, 93a little effort and investment in honing

business skills can translate into huge financial successes. At

EDS, we maintain that entrepreneurial education is no use of

itself, unless it adds value to the entrepreneur's competence and

by extension growth to his firm." In a speech read on his behalf, Mr Johnson Adasi, Director of

SMEs at the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI), called for

effective Public Private Partnership as a tool to address

challenges facing entrepreneurs. "There is also the need for attitudinal change on the part of

Ghanaian SME operators and conscious efforts should be made

to have the vision to grow their enterprises and not to be satisfied

with marginal growth." Mr Christian Adusu-Donkor, a graduate of the Fourth Class,

appealed to the MOTI and stakeholders to encourage young

entrepreneurs to stay in business. He told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the training

programme had offered him the ability to cost his services in a

more scientific and efficient way. Mr Cyril Akonor, a graduand and Creative Designer for Big

Ideaz Consult, a private firm, told GNA that he had learnt how to

improve on personal branding to carve out a niche in the creative

industry. He was grateful to the managements of BC and UGBS for the

programme. Thirteen people formed the Fourth Class of graduates out of

the 73 students so far trained through the UGBS and BC

collaboration. Enterprises under the creative industry include media,

television, advertising, software computer games, multimedia

production, film and theatre, music, visual and performing arts,

fashion design and publishing.