Letter to Honourable Abla Dzifa Gomashie, Movie Director Peter Sedufia Writes

Dear Honourable Abla Dzifa Gomashie, 

Good morning, Mamaga. 

I want to use this morning to publicly congratulate you on your appointment as the substantive minister for a sector that I belong to - the ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts . A sector that arguably provides more employment to individuals outside the government employment architecture. I'll not waste time beating about the bush.

The taxes imposed on the creative economy are a great disincentive. It makes it extremely difficult to keep pursuing anything creative art in Ghana. I'm sure being a former partaker of the industry yourself, you're no stranger to this. I don't know how things are working in the music side, so I'll stick with the film industry where I belong. 

Let me quickly bring to your attention that as things stand, for every 100% sale we make in the already scanty/very limited cinemas, the government takes about 30%. The remaining 70% is then shared between the filmmaker and the cinema owners 35% each. That's even for the first week. The filmmaker's share drops further as the weeks go by.

Let me put this into money terms:

For every Ghc 100,000 a Ghanaian filmmaker makes at the cinema, the government takes Ghc 30,000, the cinema owner takes Ghc 35,000, and the filmmaker takes 35,000. 

It is said that for any filmmaker to break even at the Box Office (cinema), the film must make at least 3 times its investment. On average, a decent Ghanaian film would cost Ghc 400,000 (excluding marketing cost). There's only one major cinema chain in Ghana (Silverbird Cinemas) with two sites - Accra mall and West Hills mall. Each location has about 1,200 seats, making 2,400 in total. Granted that a filmmaker is successful at filling all the halls with the traditional 2 shows for the opening day, that'll be 4,800 admissions (this rarely happens, by the way. Only two Ghanaian filmmakers have been successful at this).

So, let's say the total admits for the entire cinema run of the film is 5,000, with the ticket price being Ghc 100. That'll make Ghc 500,000 gross revenue.

This implies that the government will make a non-negotiable Ghc 150,000. Mind you, as the weeks go by, the cinema owner's sharing ratio with the filmmaker increases. So, the cinema owner may end up with Ghc 200,000, and the filmmaker would have to settle with the remaining Ghc 150,000. The story would have been different if there were more cinemas across the country to fully exploit the film theatrically. 

In contrast, however, for every Ghc 100,000 equivalent I make in Nigeria, I'm paying far less than 15% in taxes - less than Ghc 15,000. Plus, they have over 80 cinema locations to shore up the numbers, compared to the about 5 we have in Ghana. 

Nigeria's population is about 7 times more than Ghana's. But then, they have over 16 times more cinemas than us. Shouldn't we match up/ catch up by the population ratio?

I honestly don't know what you'll do with this information, but I just thought to bring it to your attention. 

I wish you all the best in your new role. You're one of us - our own. We'll keep praying and supporting you to succeed, so we can also succeed!

THANK YOU 

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