In a letter written to the Chairman of Civil Society Organisation Authority (CSOA) last week, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) recommended to take administrative actions against Bhutan Film Association (BFA) officials after finding a series of procedural lapses in the 16th National Film Award, 2016.
In March this year, the Director of film “Tshorwa – The Inner Call,” Karma Lhatrul Rinpoche, accused the BFA of manipulating the award and wrote to ACC to intervene.
Although the Commission’s investigation could not prove criminal intention of rigging the award; it said that the procedures followed by the BFA authorities to select the three best films in the 16th National Film Award, 2016 were seriously flawed and lacked transparency. “There were serious of lapses from the Secretariat of BFA apparently due to lack of supervision from the Board” states the letter from ACC to CSOA’s Chairman.
The Investigation pointed out four procedural lapses. The ACC found out that the result of 16th Film Award was declared based on new guideline. However, film producers who participated in the award had signed the old guideline.
The other lapses, ACC pointed out, were the minutes of the meetings related to discussions of the new guideline with producers and board members have been created at the date on which the complaint was lodged with ACC. Discrepancies were also observed in the contents of the minutes of the meetings which ACC said could not be validated whether the Association had actually informed films producers on the new guideline.
The investigation also found out that most of the jury members accepted signing the undertaking form, where the judging criterion from the old guideline states ‘ maximum winners from seven major categories will be the best film‘. Karma Lhatrul Rinpoche’s film won six awards including three major categories awards fulfilling the criteria for the best film as per the old guideline.
In the view of above, ACC recommended the CSOA Board to take administrative actions against 10 BFA Officials which include President, Vice President, Board of Directors, and Executive Director. Further, ACC asked the board to revoke the Prime Minister’s award granted to the three best films – Serga Mathang, Hum Chewai Zamling and Thrung Thrung Karmo, and restitute Nu one million cash prize each from the winners.
The commission, based on the investigation findings, has asked the BFA to address the systematic concerns such as proper selection of jury; system of declaring conflict of interest; and a proper system of recording and managing minutes of the meetings.
