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The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Dr Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, has called on directors and accountants of the National Commission on Culture (NCC) to bring out proposals and ideas that would help modernise the country’s culture and make the NCC relevant to national development.
He stated that today’s culture was not just about the transmission of practices from one region or the other, adding that there was the need for the CNC to modernise the country’s cultural assets and be able to package their programmes to enable them sell to development partners.
That, he said would not make the CNC distinct, but more relevant in contributing to the country’s national development.
Dr Awal was speaking at this year’s Mid- Year Performance Review Meeting of the NCC and the Regional Centres for National Culture (CNC) held her in Koforidua on Wednesday on the theme: “Towards effective operations of the Centres for National Culture: The role of partnerships and collaborations.”
The meeting was purposed to enable the NCC and its directors and accountants of the CNC appraise the performances and activities of the regional centres, identify implementation challenges or gaps, and to enable them to espouse pragmatic solutions towards the second half of the year.
Dr Awal indicated that there was the need for stakeholders to run the NCC and CNC as business without diluting the country’s culture.
“Let’s run the Commission on Culture and all related sector as business. I know you have the idea, women and men so that together we would discuss proposals and ideas and it get some conclusions while we give ourselves timelines and I know we can deliver.
He added that the NCC and CNC were competing with other institutions to compete for limited resources, and hence the need for them to make themselves relevant to catch the attention of government and other development partners for resources to turn around the institution to help them sell the country’s culture for national development.
“The resources are not just there they are limited. We therefore spend more money on what will bring more money and so you have to make yourself relevant.”
He said tourism was all about culture, adding that without a good cultural asset there would be no tourism and charged the management of the NCC and CNC to leverage on the country’s culture and stated that without any cultural background there is no tourism.
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He said under President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s leadership, the government has decided to put tourism, arts and culture as the front burner of national development indicating that it was the reason for the many investments in the sector and stated that the government was poised to make the sector excel, adding that the onus lied on the NCC and CNC to ensure such success.
He called on them to ensure they come up with proposals and documents which contained bankable projects and assured that he and his outfit would help the NCC to get funding to turn around the institution.
For his part, the Executive Director of the NCC, Nana Otuo Owoahene Acheampong, stated that the Commission and centres were faced with limited resources noting that one of the main sources of strength was the support the Commission could derive from partnerships and collaborations.
He said the meeting was slated and its theme chosen to lead the commission to deliberate on how best they could leverage the strength and opportunities among key stakeholder organisations, both in the country and beyond.
He stated that as new Executive Director for the NCC, his vision was to ensure unity among members of his outfit towards efficient and effective delivery of the mandate of the Commission and regional centres and called for support from the members.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Seth Kwame Acheampong, stated that culture was an important sector that contributed significantly to the socio-economic development of the Ghanaian economy.
He therefore stated the need to equip the Centres for National Culture with the needed resources to make them more effective and efficient for the development of culture and tradition in the country.
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