Vice President and Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahammudu Bawumia, addressed the nation on Wednesday evening at the UPSA Auditorium to publicise his vision for the country ahead of the December 2024 general elections.
His speech covered a variety of topics, including job creation, GDP growth, digitalization among other national issues.
Toward the end of the speech, the Vice President discussed tourism, sports, and creative arts. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at his vision for the creative arts industry.
“We will build on the Year of Return, Beyond the Return, December in Ghana,” he emphasised.
As opposed to other sectors, the presidential candidate did not elaborate on what he meant by “build on”. Does he plan to bring more shows to Ghana in December? What exactly does the “build on” entail? Detty December last year saw 201 events in collaboration with the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) from November to January.
Having more events means more revenue for the state, so it would be beneficial for our industry if the next NPP government would lobby for more events in Ghana during the Detty December season.
Let me not put words in his mouth, he only stated that he will build on Ghana in December, and hopefully his communicators will be able to provide more detailed explanations as and when they are asked.
“We will introduce other initiatives such as digital and streaming platforms for our artistes to make tourism and the creative arts a growth pole in Ghana. Tax incentives will also be provided for film producers and musicians.”
Digital Streaming platforms for our artistes? For a Vice President who preaches digitalization with every opportunity he gets, this promise is not surprising. However, it’s still disturbing how these promises are just thrown out without any elaboration. What kind of streaming platform? For just music? Or movies are included? What prevented the presidential aspirant from giving a little more detail to these promises? Hopefully, we get more clarity in the yet-to-be-released manifesto. Until then, Cheers to Ghana’s very own Spotify and our indigenous Netflix.
In 2020, these promises were made to the creative arts sector in the NPP’s manifesto. The party promised to build a digital platform for artistes to make their products available to the global market. In addition, they promised to construct theatres in Takoradi and Tamale. They also promised to set up large recording studios in Accra, Kumasi, Tamale and Takoradi for artistes to rent space and record music.
We could assume that indeed, those are Dr Bawumia’s vision for the creative arts sector, the reason why we’re seeing these promises reappear even after they were in the 2020 manifesto. As of now, there is no large recording studio established by the NPP government in Accra and the other cities, there are no new theatres built in Takoradi and Tamale as they promised. There’s also no new digital platform where our artistes release their songs onto. These
Promises have not been delivered upon. What is the guarantee that the creative arts sector will benefit from the next NPP government?
For the time being, here’s what Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia hopes to accomplish for the creative arts industry. The question of whether he can keep his promises will be discussed later on.
By Cyril Senason Anani
