Exempt Copyright Office from capping policy — PAC
The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, Dr James Klutse Avedzi, has said that there is the need to exempt the Copyright Office from the capping policy.
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In line with that, he has entreated the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General and the Minister of Finance to intervene and ensure that was done to enable the Copyright Office to address its financial challenges since that was preventing the establishment from achieving its objectives and mandate.
Dr Avedzi said that per the 2021 Auditor-General’s report, the internally-generated funds of the Copyright Office was GH¢181,000, while in actual fact the office generated a total of GH¢274,000 revenue in the year under review.
This means that the government took about GH¢93,000 of the funds due to the capping placed on the IGF of the office and pleaded that “they should be exempted”.
The chairman was speaking when officials of the Copyright Office appeared before the PAC in Parliament yesterday to respond to concerns raised in the A-G’s report.
Officials of the office expressed worry over the cap placed on its IGF which they said was depriving them of needed funds to run their activities.
The officials included the Principal State-Attorney and acting Corporate Administrator of the office, William Akweitey Bonsu; the Principal Documentation and Research Officer, Sheila Narkie Djanmah, and Head of Office, Hammond Ashie.
They were accompanied by a Deputy Attorney-General and the Minister of Justice, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah.
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Resource retention
Mrs Djanmah also emphasised the need to remove the office from the capping policy to retain the “little resources” it received to run its activities.
“In a month, you can get about GH¢2,000 from registration of work and if 34 per cent is taken off, how much would be retained.
“Prior to the capping policy, we were retaining 100 per cent and even so it was not enough.
And that is the reason we wrote to the Finance Ministry to plead that we be taken off the capping policy to help us resolve some of our financial issues,” she said.
Mrs Djanmah also said that the office had not been able to fill vacancies or replaced retired staff, adding “generally, it boils down to the lack of funds, and we also need to do online registration which requires heavy investment”.
Observation
The Vice-Chairman of the committee, Samuel Atta Mills, drew attention to part of the Auditor-General’s report that said the challenges might render the objectives and mandate of the Copyright Office “unachievable if measures are not taken to save the situation”.
“The question is do we need a copyright office or not and what are we doing about all these challenges?”
“There is a major international company that is selling “Ahenema” (a traditional flip-flop) for $2,500 and we do not have any copyright for it”, the National Democratic Congress MP for Komenda Edina Eguafo Abrem, added.
Budgetary constraints
For his part, Mr Tuah-Yeboah underlined the significance of the Copyright Office, saying “I do not think we can live as a nation without having such an office, but it is all about funding and budgetary constraints”.
“Left to us (A-G’s Office), the Copyright Office should keep at least 100 per cent of internally-generated funds,” he said.