GAPI Fights For Music Industry

The Ghana Association of Phonographic Industry (GAPI), made up of music producers in the country, has announced that it will host a stakeholder’s forum in Accra and Kumasi to discuss issues affecting the creative industry in Ghana.

The forum will take place in Kumasi on March 6 at Apatakese Asa, and in Accra on March 12 at the Copyright Office boardroom. The forum, which is expected to attract captains in the music and creative industry as well as executive producers and musicians, is aimed at equipping players in the music and creative industry with the needed shrewdness to fight for the betterment of the industry.

The forum, which will be addressed by a number of resource persons, has Ken Opoku Asiedu, the National Chairman of GAPI, as the principal speaker. A source close to GAPI told NEWS-ONE that the forum would also deliberate on development in the music industry and help chart a collective way forward.

He emphasized that the industry did not only need fresh captains but people with required competence and commitment to push for vast improvement in the music and the creative industry.

He stated that the music and the creative industry had not witnessed massive enhancement due to the absence of advocacy workshops to equip the players with the needed skills to fight for the industry. He said prior to the formation of the Ghana Music Right Organisation (GHAMRO) to replace the Copyright Society of Ghana (COSGA), there were challenges which the players in the industry needed to address.

Three weeks ago, a number of Ghanaian musicians and music producers mounted pressure on members of the interim board of the newly-certified GHAMRO, a royalty collective society for musicians and owners of creative works within the music industry, to organize elections to elect a substantive board to manage the affairs of the society.

GAPI, which is currently leading a crusade to get an elected board to manage the affair of GHAMRO, has given the interim board members of GHAMRO up to 90 days to organize elections to elect a substantive board to replace the old board, failure of which would inform their next line of action, adding that the term of the interim board of GHAMRO should not exceed 90 days before congress is held.

GAPI recommended the formation of two committees to oversee the elections and revision of the draft constitution for eventual adoption by the congress on the day of the election.

It said that consultants should be hired to assist the interim board to put administrative structures in place before handing over to the substantive board after the election.

It also called on the Interim Copyright Management Team (ICMT) overseeing the operations of the Copyright Society of Ghana (COSGA), which has been replaced by GHAMRO, to render accounts.