Ghanaian artist Kirani Ayat has refuted recent statements made by Akwasi Agyeman, the CEO of the Ghana Tourism Authority, concerning an alleged settlement in their 2022 copyright dispute.
The controversy arose when Ayat accused the government of incorporating scenes from his music video into a tourism advertisement without his authorization.
The promotional video, shared by President Nana Akufo-Addo on X (formerly Twitter) to mark World Tourism Day on September 27, 2022, included visuals from Ayat’s track, Guda.
When he finally met with the GTA and got compensated, the authority also promised that “moving forward, Ayat and GTA will collaborate on a number of projects aimed at showcasing Ghana, our beautiful landscapes, and exciting talents to the world.”
Speaking on Hitz FM with Andy Dosty, Akwasi Agyeman, the CEO of the Ghana Tourism Authority, revealed that while the government had expressed interest in collaborating with Kirani Ayat, the musician was unavailable when contacted for the proposed project.
“We reached an agreement and a settlement. And then in that agreement we said going forward we will work together. So this was somewhere in the middle of the year. So when we were doing our December programme, we reached out to him and his team because he is from Navrongo.
We are even keen and eager to have programmes in other parts of the country apart from Accra, Cape Coast, and Takoradi which is dominating the December in GH calendar. And he said they were not ready.
Since then, we have not actually heard from him. So we haven’t been able to go the whole nine yards with him,” he said on Daybreak Hitz.
Akwasi Agyeman further noted that the authority is still open to working with Kirani Ayat when he is ready.
“But we are still keen on working with him,” he said.
Meanwhile, Kirani Ayat has taken to X to refute Akwasi Agyeman’s claims, describing them as “lies.”
“This man, he no dey answers my manager’s call. All be lie,” he wrote.