Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Mark Okraku Mantey, has revealed that the New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s promise to establish three music recording studios has not come to fruition.
According to the minister, industry players primarily deemed it unnecessary.
He noted that while some figures in the entertainment industry initially supported the plan, they later deemed it redundant as existing private studios are already thriving.
He finds the situation particularly uncomfortable, as he was instrumental in advocating for the inclusion of the studio proposal in the NPP’s 2020 manifesto.
“So if you watch in 2017, 2016 it was not in the manifesto. It appeared in 2020. if you could go and pick some of my audios in my days at hitz FM, the industry fought against it. It is explicit, it is public knowledge, it was all over. I can quote some of them like Apietus, some were “for”, some were against. But the “against” were higher than the for. And so for those of us who have seen some of our bug men go to prison because of causing financial laws to the state, we decided to play it safe by not taking the risk.
During the launch of the NPP’s 2020 manifesto in the Central Region, the Vice President, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, announced that during its second term in office, it will build recording studios in Greater Accra, Ashanti, and Western Regions.
“We see the creative arts as a major growth pole, it has so much talent, the problem is access to studio. As a result, we will set up large recording studios in Accra, Tema, Takoradi and Kumasi, for recording artistes to rent,” he said.
Speaking to the media, the deputy minister cited Gospel musician Nacee, who has expressed in interviews that he no longer sees the need for additional recording studios, given the success of numerous private facilities already in operation.
“They rejected it. You can quote me anywhere anytime. They rejected and said we should share the money amongst them because they already have studios that were doing well. You can quote me again. Nacee, few weeks ago was on hit FM, he went to peace fm again and Nacee said that at the time he supported, but he feels that now, we don’t need it. Yes Nacee said it a few weeks ago”
However if the industry expresses renewed interest in having the studios built then we will proceed.
“The bottom line is that if the industry shows interest that they’ve change their minds that we should build, why not? We will go for it.”
In the 2020 manifesto of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), they promised to build three recording music studios when re-elected into power again.
The three recording music studios were planed to be situated at Kumasi, Accra, Tema and Takoradi.
However, this has remained an unfulfilled promise because creative players are no more in support of the idea.
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