The current board of the Copyright Society of Ghana (COSGA), headed by Alhaji Sidiku Buari, president of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), has ordered the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to stop the sales of 1.3 million hologram stickers belonging to the society and rather sell the gamugram.
This was made known by Mr. Faisal Helwani, a former member of the COSGA oversight committee in charge of research and investigations, in an interview with DAILY GUIDE in Accra.
He indicated that the hologram stickers were introduced to protect the works of right owners, and the payment of mechanical right royalty to composers was also introduced, which was their welfare benefit.
According to him, a ¢400 million bank loan was contracted to purchase the holograms and IRS which was in charge of the sales at that time paid SG-SSB Bank ¢180 million out of direct sales in two months.
He added that if the 1.3 million hologram stickers had been sold at the fixed price of ¢300 each it would have fetched COSGA over ¢420 million, part of which would have been used to repay the loan.
This, he said, the current board failed to do and left the stickers unsold for 7 years, resulting in huge interest on the loan contracted.
He noted that the introduction of the gamugram stickers by the new board raised a lot of questions, when it came to light that a company, Gamugram Trust Ghana Limited was duly registered to facilitate the importation and sale of the stickers.
Faisal indicated that the gamugram stickers were of inferior quality, having two-colour print as against the hologram which was a five-colour, three dimensional printing with a holographic print of the Ghana map inside.
“This is a sophisticated security print unlike the gamugram which was inferior and selling at ¢300 each, bringing a profit of about 20 billion in the last six years”.
Faisal stated.Mr Helwani stated that since the introduction of the gamugram stickers, accounts on the sale and profit made had not been made public to stakeholders and members of the Ghana Association of Phonographic Industry (GAPI) and MUSIGA.
On the issue of SG-SSB Bank’s lawsuit against COSGA for non-payment of the loan, Faisal said the loan had attracted a huge interest, adding that members of the COSGA oversight committee would appear in court as witnesses.
On his part, the MUSIGA boss said it was neither his decision nor the current COSGA board’s decision to change the hologram system to gamugram as Mr. Helwani had alleged.
“It is the stakeholders, made up of producers and musicians who decided to ignore hologram for gamugram”.
He said the stakeholders took the decision as there was so much “corruption” in the handling of the hologram system by Faisal Helwani and his oversight committee which the current COSGA board took over from, adding “they even left office without rendering any account”.
He alleged that “money supposed to be used in purchasing hologram was diverted to Faisal Helwani’s personal dealings via Forex Bureau instead of going through the Bank of Ghana to the suppliers of hologram in Britain.”
He said “at that time the committee was purchasing some of the holograms locally.
Meaning, they were pirating the original hologram and selling it themselves”, stating further that the holograms were not having numbers and were easily used to pirate musical works in those day.
He said because the committee was not paying the suppliers in Britain they also stopped supplying the holograms to the committee.
The committee, he said, then went to contract a loan from SG-SSB which Faisal claimed was used to purchase the holograms.
ccording to Sidiku Buari, the committee contracted the loan on behalf of the stakeholders without first informing them.
“When the oversight committee left office they did not account to the current COSGA to know why and how they contracted the loan. We can not pay for something we do not know about,” he added.
He said it was the Oversight Committee’s responsibility to pay the money, not COSGA.
The introduction of the gamugram had helped and benefited the industry, he said.
However, on the introduction of mechanical right royalty payment to composers, which was their welfare benefit, Alhaji Sidiku Buari alleged “during Faisal’s time there was nothing like mechanic right royalty.”
