Minister Usi urges prudence in Copyright Fund disbursement
Minister of Tourism, Culture and Wildlife, Dr. Michael Usi has urged Copyright Society of Malawi (COSOMA) to exercise prudence in the disbursement of Copyright Fund, if the objectives of the funding program are to be realized.
The Minister made the remarks on Tuesday at Sunbird Capital Hotel in Lilongwe during the launch of Copyright Fund by COSOMA which is aiming at promoting creative industry in the country.
Usi said that the authorities from COSOMA should not utilize the funds of the newly launched program in doing other operations which are contrary to the objectives of the program.
“I am concerned with the overhead course that I have experienced in getting funds from donors, what I do see from other beneficiaries is that they do get more than 30 percent of the budget for their overhead operations and that disturbs the whole reason of the funding.
“Therefore I am imploring to the managers of the Copyright Fund to ensure that they should not dig deep inside the funding for their operations but the funding should really go a long way to help the artists to improve their industry,” Usi said.
He also urged that, the Copyright Fund should also benefit artists who are in rural areas saying that most of the times artists from urban areas are those targeted with opportunities.
“Artists from rural areas should be included as well, there is a tendency of focusing those that are in urban areas forgetting that real talent is in the rural areas, for this reason the Copyright Fund should help identifying skills of the artists in the rural areas,” he said.
In her remarks, COSOMA Board Chairperson, Maureen Masamba said that as an institution they have put measures to help in the implementation of the Copyright Fund program so that it should serve its intended purpose.
“Basically the fund has a procedure on how is going to be administered, we have the guidelines and regulations which were approved by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Wildlife.
“As we will be ready to begin disbursing the funds an announcement will be made in all channels of communication so that everyone who is interested to access the grant can see and apply,” Masamba said.
The Copyright Fund program has been pumped up with K420 million to run the initial phase of the program.
The launch of the program attracted various individuals from country’s creative sector which include; musicians, poets as well as those from cultural groupings such as, Chiwanja Cha Yawo.
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