Movie Industry Lacks Structures-Mikki Osei Berko

Mikki Osei Berko

Mikki Osei Berko, one of Ghana's seasoned radio presenters who returned home a couple of months from UK, yesterday declared that he was back with newly developed skills to develop the movie industry.

According to him, the movie industry in Ghana, which lacks good structures, has gone through so many problems and need serious attention, adding that the stakeholders need to put in place personalities who have the skills to run the industry so that the players can benefit from their works.

He said the stakeholders in the creative industry should find creative measures to bring all the players on board to work toward the progress of the industry, adding that the structures were not there and there was still opportunity for those around to make amends.

He told BEATWAVES in a chat that film acting was all about creativity and direction. 'I have studied the trend of the movie industry in Ghana and I am ready to go the extra mile to meet the challenges ahead. I have studied a lot about film making, directing, editing, among others, and I think the time has come for stakeholders to come out with quality movies that could compete with those on the international movie market'.

Mikki, a former host of Adom FM's Drive Programme, Ofiekwanso, who described himself as someone who was highly motivated, determined, confident and thrived on tackling challenges, said the stakeholders in the movie industry must put in place strategies that would help to promote the Ghanaian movie industry to the outside world.

He stressed that there should be a national policy to compel local television stations in the country to redesign their policies and programmes so they could air more local contents than foreign ones which he said were killing the creative industry in Ghana.

Mikki noted that if local television stations were charged to air about 10 per cent of foreign programmes whiles advertisements that were shown on local TVs stations were about 10 per cent foreign and the rest being in local content. He asserted that TV stations would be forced to sell well in order to pay Ghanaian locals to perform.

This he said would create job opportunities for the stakeholders in the creative industry.

Mikki, who left the shores of Ghana a couple of years ago, worked extensively with Radio Gold, an Accra-based private radio station, which he left in July 2003 to join Happy FM , also in Accra and then relocated to Kessben FM.

By George Clifford Owusu