Fred Nuamah ask GMA awardees to call or write to him for their plaques

Oh! Is that how awards are organised? The award-winner is to phone the organisers of the show for his award(s) after he is not given the award on the night? Fred Nuamah, the man behind Ghana Movie Awards has told Razz Newspaper that if you are an actor and you have not received your award from any of the editions of GMA, then pick up your phone, call him or send him a letter requesting for your award through this address; Ghana Movie Awards, P. O. Box AN 0001, Accra-North.

For the Ghana Movie Awards, every year comes with accompanying issues and controversies; from poor organization of the event to winners not receiving their plaques/statuettes – the awards make the headlines for the very bad reasons.

Legendary actress, Grace Nortey shockingly disclosed on Peace FM’s ‘Entertainment Review’ last week that she has not received any statuette for an award she won at the 2011 Ghana Movie Awards.

The actress’s disclosure follows other complaints from other winners of the same awards show who have over the years, expressed their contempt in not receiving their statuettes, months and years after being announced winners.

Razz Newspaper got hold of the founder of the Ghana Movie Awards, Mr. Fred Nuamah and had a dialogue with him on the various issues that have dogged the awards.

Razz (R): We seem to have issues every year with the Awards. People think, such issues are engineered deliberately to generate some hype for the Awards.

Fred Nuamah (FN): It is not true that the GMA does it for publicity. The situation of plaques taking some time before they are handed to winner is not peculiar to the GMA. You can find out from Samini or Sarkodie about how long it took for the organizers of MOBO and BET to present their awards to them. We at GMA want to put the names of the winners on the statuettes and since the winners are not pre-determined, we can only put the names on after the awards, so, what we usually give them on the night of the awards show are dummies. We have learnt lessons with regards to the statuette taking long to get to winners so next year, we will inform all nominees that if they want the awards to be presented to them as winners without the names on it or otherwise, although we think it is nice to have names of winners encrypted on the plaques.

R: How come after three years, Grace Nortey has not received her statuette?

FN: I don’t think anyone’s statuette has taken three years to be given to him/her. With Grace Nortey, we gave hers out on the night of the awards.

R: What do you mean you gave hers out on the night?

FN: What happened was that, we had a presentation ceremony after the awards show and someone collected hers but we can’t trace it. We can’t seem to recollect who exactly came for the statuette but we will sort it out. However, our doors are open for all those who have not received their awards, they can call us. The point is, if they have not called us, we won’t know so they should call me. We have some of the statuettes/plaques without names on them so; we can send them to India to have their names put on them.

R: Is there no system in place to check whether awardees have received their statuettes or not?

FN: We do have a system but until you make a complaint, it is very difficult to deal with some of our people. It is difficult getting addresses of industry players and some production houses collect the plaques on behalf of the actors but fail to give them out. We therefore call on all industry persons who have not received their prizes to call or write to the address; Ghana Movie Awards, P. O. Box AN 0001, Accra-North.

R: Another issue has to do with the nomination of Jocelyn Dumas at the AMAAs. She was nominated in the lead role category but during the last edition of the GMA, there was brouhaha over her nomination as Best Supporting Actress. Some critics have stated that, AMAA’s nomination of Jocelyn in that category exposes the wrong in GMA.

FN: I don’t think we had it wrong and I won’t say AMAA also had it wrong. Where an actor/actress is placed in the nominations is purely based on the awards scheme and nothing else. GMA uses the academy system and AMAA uses the jury system so none of the firms is wrong in nominating Jocelyn for different categories for her performance in the same movie.

R: Final thoughts

FN: People criticize the Awards unnecessarily. We don’t need Eddie Murphy to organize Ghana Movie Awards; it is money we need to organize the awards successfully. Money will get the GMA to the standard that people want, period!