• Ivan Quashigah has asked government to waive the duty placed on film making equipment imported into the country
• He has lamented the high cost of filmmaking equipment and taxes placed on them
• According to him, government should review the import duties to lessen the burden on filmmakers in the country
Popular Ghanaian filmmaker, Ivan Quashigah, has called on the government to issue tax rebates to filmmakers whenever they import movie equipment into the country.
Lamenting on the high cost of duties paid to bring down film making equipment into the country, Mr. Quashigah said:
“One problem for filmmakers in this country is the cost of film equipment. We buy the equipment. There is no equipment gear house in Ghana where you can go and loan a camera to film. And the cameras are becoming very expensive. And when you bring them into this country, because of the cost, you are also bound to pay heavy duties on them. I believe that if the government gives us some rebate on the import duties of the equipment we bring in, it will reduce the burden on filmmakers,” he stated in an interview with CitiTV monitored by GhanaWeb.
Sharing his opinion on the influx of telenovelas on Ghanaian screens, the ‘Things we do for love and Yolo’ producer said there must be a strategic attempt to limit the prominence given to such soap operas.
“I think that we need to follow what other people have done. Like in Nigeria, what they do is that the prime time is given to local content. If that is done there will be work for people in the industry and in a few years we will be doing things that Nollywood is doing now. We have to be a little bit selfish about this issue. We have to know that it is our lives that matter, it is our culture that matters,” he added.
