President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the return of N10bn seized from the National Broadcasting Commission by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
This was disclosed by the Director-General of NBC, Mallam Is’haq Kawu, who revealed the development at a press conference to announce the 20th edition of Africa Broadcasting Conference and Exhibition coming up in Abuja next week.
The money is part of the funds realised by the NBC, under the former DG, Mr. Emeka Mba from the sale of frequency to MTN Nigeria Communications Limited.
Before now, the funds had been a subject of probe by the EFCC following allegation that the broadcast regulatory agency failed to remit it to the Treasury Single Account at the time prescribed by the Federal Government.
The NBC made it clear then that the funds were meant for projects being executed for the country’s migration to digital broadcasting.
Accordingly, Kawu said the funds would be channelled towards projects and programmes aimed at achieving the transition to digital broadcasting for which a deadline of June 2017 had been set.
He added that the NBC was planning to establish a content development for the broadcast industry as the era of digitisation was expected to create immense need for content development as a result of multiple channels to be witnessed in the new era.
Kawu said “We are going to assist a lot of young people to get finances for the production of their contents. We are thinking in terms of content development fund within the NBC and the NBC also provides opportunity for young content providers.”
According to Kawu, a 10 per cent increase in the digitisation of the broadcast industry is predicted to create one million new jobs.
