Information Minister Visits NAFTI

The Information Minister, Hon. John Tia Akologu has bemoaned the current state of the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) and has promised to provide the necessary funds and logistics to lift the Institution from its dire situation. Government, he said, has one of its goals to invest in people through education to necessitate the intended development of the country, noting that ��NAFTI occupies a very critical position in this process of development.��The Information Minister gave this assurance, when he paid a working visit to the Institute, yesterday in Accra. The Minister said he was saddened to hear that the Institution that trains media personnel in broadcasting have over the years been �left on its own that nobody seems to care about the plight of the Institution.��The Minister, therefore, asked the authorities of the Institute to make available its budgetary allocation for him to know at first hand, how much government subvention will be enough to enable the Institute function properly in terms of its training programmes. In his welcome address, the Rector of the Institute, Prof. Linus Abraham was thankful to the Minister for his positive thought and his intended interventions to lift NAFTI from its logistical and structural doldrums. The Rector stated that the plight of the Institute is militating against the numerous plans of the school, citing that the institute, which already undertakes both Diploma and Degree programmes, also intends to run Masters� Programmes in Film Production and Broadcast Journalism. The negligible intake of students into the institution, he added, is also as a result of the inadequate funds and logistics for training of the students. Prof. Abraham hinted that the Friedrich Ebert Foundation initially provided much of the equipment needed to train students, but unfortunately It has currently taken more interest in governance rather than media training and development. �Since that time, NAFTI has found it very difficult to sustain itself, since government subvention to re-equip the Institute has been drastically reduced.��He appealed to the Information Minister, as a matter of urgency to infuse funds into the institution and re-equip NAFTI to enable it churn-out the needed skilled media personnel needed for the country�s Television and Film industries.