Interview: Film House owed FG N12 million, CRSG taxes didn’t scare them —Eric Anderson

Nyok|26 October 2018

The Honourable Commissioner for Tourism Development in Cross River State, Mr Eric Anderson, Thursday, shed light into possible reasons why Film House, erstwhile managers of state-owned cinema at Marina Resort left the management of the facility NEGROIDHAVEN can report authoritatively.

He asserted that the later left the management of the state-owned facility due to Film House being indebted to the Federal Government to the tune of Twelve million naira. 

Anderson who noted that while the taxation issue was part of the reason for Film House leaving, added that the Cross River State Government through her contracting authority, Tourism Bureau terminated the contract between the state government and Film House for obvious reasons bordering on mismanagement of the facility.

Anderson said that Film House ‘were owing FIRS twelve million naira, not the state, FIRS shut down Marina Resort because of the tax owed by the people running the place. So, it was a Film House/Tandem issue, it wasn’t a state government issue.

‘If you want to talk about taxes (he laughs mildly), it’s funny if Film House would complain of taxes. Of course, the facility is state government’s, and you bring a private individual to run it, so our taxes cannot affect you,

‘I drove down to FIRS office myself that morning to wedge in for the embarrassment of locking up a state facility, that is when we knew they were owing that much, so the money that was owed as tax was not owed by state government, it was owed by Tandem, they were owing federal government, Tandem owed federal government, if you remember the report that went out.

‘Inside the Marina Resort the element of the cinema was given to Film House. Film House contract had expired then at the point of doing inventory, the place had worn out, they were not maintaining it.

‘We could renew the contract, but, in terms of managing the facility itself, we were not comfortable with them; they wanted to come back no doubt but we were not comfortable with the level they had managed the facility, so, the Tourism Bureau who is the contracting authority had to send them away.’

Commissioner Anderson further highlighted to our correspondent in his Okoi Arikpo House office in Calabar that the contract between Tandem the managers of Marina Resort has been terminated despite the lease being phrased to last for twenty years. He premised the termination on the gross failure of the contracting party, Tandem, to manage the facility commendably.

His words, ‘Take for instance Marina Resort, Marina Resort was concession to Tandem just before Ayade’s government came in, and then from the agreement, it’s a 20 year lease, but, to be reviewed after five years, the first five years is going to be in 2019, so, in four years, you know the situation of Marina Resort. Who do you blame, please? (Reporters says ‘I would blame Tandem’).

‘But, at the point you want to blame government as landlord, you know, ”I gave my house to you and you are not taking care of it, I should take action against you”? We have terminated that contract. Yes, we have to… We have to because we call for meetings with Tandem, they don’t turn up, we try to push them to do the right thing, they don’t do it.

‘We are receiving a lot of lashes from social media, from industry players, you know, “what is happening with our facility?”, because it’s our facility now and we are looking for ways to fix it’. 

Recall that Film House left the management of cinema in circumstances that were controversial and now adjudged to be held in secrecy.

Efio-Ita Nyok
Is the Blogger-in-Chief, Editor-in-Chief & Publisher of NEGROIDHAVEN