Arts council underfunded
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Sunday March 3, 2024 06:00
The newly established Arts Council has endured a troubled start to life since it was launched last year, with its substantive Chief Executive Officer, Shombie Ellis, suspended just a few months into office amid grants issues. The council was established to foster the nation’s artistic potential and nurture creative talents.
Meanwhile, Rakgare told Parliament recently that the NACB had an arts and culture grant of P4 million against a P187.5 million funding request by artists for the 2023/24 financial year. “The Council experienced funding challenges, especially for the arts and culture grants.
The NACB had an arts and culture grant of P4m, against a P187.5m funding request by artists. This ended up with deserving projects needing more funding. Kindly, note that the P4m funding is for the whole country,” Rakgare said. Rakgare, who was responding to a question from the Member of Parliament for Gaborone Central, Tumisang Mangwegape-Healy, said the NACB did an open call for the arts and culture grant in July-September 2023 and received a total of 960 requests for funding amounting to P187, 517, 058.41. Rakgare explained that the open call, guided by the Grant policy and Grant Guidelines and Procedures, aims to support the creative economy in the development, promotion and preservation of the creative industry in Botswana. Healy had also asked the minister to update Parliament on what has been achieved since the Council became operational, what challenges have been faced and what the Council is doing to help the local creatives monetise their content on social media, considering that some platforms such as YouTube do not allow Batswana-based users to monetise their content.
The minister stated that from the 960 requests, the NACB managed to fund a total of 58 projects, disbursing P3, 131, 967.25 to 49 projects. “Fourty-three of the funded projects have already been implemented and positively impacted the industry economically and creatively throughout the country. To put this into perspective, Botswana has 57 constituencies, which means the NACB has on average P70,000 allocated per constituency through the Arts and Culture grant,” he said. The minister also said the NACB needs at least P1 million per parliamentary constituency for the funding to make the desired creative, socio-economic impact. Rakgare also conceded that the council experienced some employee relations challenge following the resignation of two directors that he says affected its mandate.
He admitted that the Council’s CEO has spent more time on suspension than on the job but declined to comment further on the issue as there are still ongoing disciplinary proceedings. The controversy sparked outrage among artists and creative industry practitioners who demanded transparency, accountability and an explanation for the suspension. “The lack of regional offices across the country has led to minimal presence of the NACB services, especially in remote areas. The NACB is working around the clock to establish functional district offices to decentralise services from the Gaborone headquarters,” he said.
Furthermore, the minister said they have engaged the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) regarding local artists benefiting from the social media platforms. “Unfortunately it turned out that Botswana is not included in the list of countries where monetisation programme is available due to low volumes of content in Botswana. The NACB will continue to engage artists, content aggregates and social media platforms to solve the issue. It will also work with artists to increase their content so that Botswana can also be listed,” he said.