Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) said Tuesday it was struggling to get development partners to undertake the construction of the School for Arts project whose foundation stone was laid in 2017.
Cosoma Head of Documentation and Distribution Shadrick Kumtengo admitted Tuesday that the project has delayed and that it would have taken off by now.
Kumtengo said they were looking for development partners in the construction of the school whose site is at Cosoma offices in Lilongwe.
“The designs were done in 2017 and Cosoma has been pushing for support from the government but it has been a challenge. In 2017, the budget was at K5 million but, with inflation, now the budget stands at K5 billion,” he said.
Kumtengo said since the foundation stone was laid, they have been lobbying to be funded until this year, when the government decided to allocate some funds towards the project.
“But the funding is not directly for the school on its own, but it goes through a project known as National Arts and Cultural Centre which has four other components. This year, the government allocated K500 million for all the project components,” Kumtengo said.
He said the government has shown interest in the School for Arts project.
“As I have indicated, the challenge for us is to find partners to construct the school but we have assurances from other partners that they will support the project once construction takes course,” Kumtengo said.
He said, initially, the project was under the Integrated Arts project and that it was to be completed in 2021, funds permitting.
“As to when it will complete, we will have to wait for resources from the government. The construction of the school is a huge project. It will have a state of the art lab, amphitheater, hostel, classrooms, offices and hub for creatives to use,” he said.
Kumtengo said Cosoma developed the School for the Arts concept after looking at the tertiary education system in the country that requires some minimum qualifications for creatives to be enrolled into the programmes.
Director of Arts Humphrey Mpondaminga said it was true that the School for the Arts is part of the bigger project of the National Arts and Cultural Centre.
“This is all part of trying to address the infrastructure needs. Malawi has never had national facilities and, last year, we engaged Treasury and this year we are doing preliminaries,” Mpondaminga said.
