Alabaster Box disappointed in the IEA

The IEA seems to have fallen on the wrong side of Ghanaian music group – Alabaster box as a member of the group and an editor at Adom Fm, Samuel Dowuona, has taken to social media (Facebook) to air his grievances. His problem has to do with how the IEA treated them unfairly and unprofessionally after hiring them to come perform at their function.

Below is what Samuel Dowuona posted on his Facebook timeline.

“?Xexe, for those who are seeking to know why the name of Alabaster Box Gh was mentioned on national TV at the IEA Encounter with Ivor Greenstreet and we did not show up, here is your answer.

First of all, whether it was deliberate or a mistake on the part of IEA, I can’t tell. But they cannot use five seconds to destroy our 21 years of integrity and professionalism.

1. IEA prepared a contract to engage our services for three days, to sing the National Anthem AT THE START of each of their encounters.

2. We looked at the contract, asked for an adjustment in the honorarium, they accepted it and we signed off.

3. After we had closed the deal, they asked for additional service, for us to wait for the entire encounter to finish and sing the Anthem at the end. We obliged and did it on day one, when Dr. EDWARD MAHAMA was there, without complain, and without additional reward.

4. They came again asking for a second additional service outside of the contract. This time we told them “no” because we have agreed to one additional service already so we cannot agree to a second one while the honorarium is fixed.

6. They were not ready to part with anything extra but insisted on extra service. We stood our grounds and refused to grant their unjustifiable demands.

7. They called later and said if we are not ready to do additional service for the same reward then the contract is cancelled so they will give us honorarium for only day one, which is one third of the agreed total.

The honorarium is not the issue, But I am woefully disappointed in IEA because they parade themselves as one seeking to ensure INTEGRITY in our body politic and yet they have not showed enough of that in this matter. They could not stick to a contract that they designed. And they are not even grateful for the additional service we provided outside of the contract.

They cancelled the contract not because we broke it, but because we insisted on sticking to it. What an irony.

What is even more disappointing is that after canceling the contract, which we had no qualms about, they conveniently chose to forget to take our name off the program, and our name was mentioned on national TV, and they did not even have the courtesy to explain why we did not show. They just left the public thinking we were either late to the program or we did not show up without any explanation.

It is not in the nature of Alabaster Box to behave in such an unprofessional manner and we take serious exception to the conduct of IEA in this instance. We think that was very unprofessional, unfortunate and probably deliberate to create the impression that they made provision for the anthem but we failed to show.

We wish to clear the air by stating that we were never invited to the event and we were under no obligation to be there. For whatever purpose IEA chose to leave our name on the program, that is entirely up to them. But we will continue to maintain our integrity as a group.

God bless.”