It's Senseless To Blame MUSIGA For Industry Problems

Obour, MUSIGA President

I have observed for sometime now how majority of musicians have been blaming Musiga for their failure.

It is normal for our race to blame others for our individual failures and if it continues like this we will continue to exist in a state of poverty.

Musiga is an association and it is not compulsory to join and just like the constitution says we have the liberty to join any association of our choice. When we join associations it is not their responsibility to solve all our problems in fact you can decide to leave that association any day and any time in fact you can also form your own association if you take the necessary steps. I remember Carlos Sakyi formed one called Promag and you can join them if you are not satisfied with Musiga. For all these years Musiga has been the face of Musicians because of their brand positioning and most musicians even think Musiga is suppose to pay them their royalties and I believe it's born out of ignorance.

Since Musiga was given 2million by government the president Obour has not known peace and it's as if they want to give a dog a bad name and hung it but this dog cannot be hungged because he was democratically elected by their constitution and can only exit after his term of office. Musiga was given the 2 million to undertake a specific job so you wonder why some musicians think Musiga should have shared it for them to chop. Musiga undertook that job and has accordingly accounted to those who gave out the task. The President of Musiga has on other occasions had to explain in the lay man's language the breakdown of the expenses yet members have still not taken the pains to read the research yet they go around displaying their ignorance openly. Musiga's office was given to them by government and it was done by lobbying. Musiga again was able to lobby government to take taxes off musical instruments for musicians and I wonder how many musicians have taken advantage of this policy.

The Music Industry needs associations but these associations are not solely responsible for our success or failure.

Teachers don't blame Utag or GNAT for their individual success or failures, Lawyers don't blame their associations for their success, Doctors do not blame their associations for their failures the truth is their members strengthen the associations to become stronger and better. Musiga derives it's strength from its members so if they have members who only know how to denigrate and play blame games and expect the association to solve problems that is not their responsibility then you can only wonder how that association can grow and also how other institution will relate to them.

Yes 2 million is good money but for an industry as big as ours 2 million is a drop in the ocean and I believe they would have gotten more if their members would have supported them and by now would have gotten some infrastructures like rehearsal studios etc in place but how could they if all their members know is to shout in public. Yes some of us also have some issues with the disbursement for instance how GAPI was given 100,000ghc and I intend to make time to visit the office of GAPI and ask for accountability.

All other associations have their own problems yet you will not hear them publicly drumming and dancing their problems.

I believe that if other institutions have the right to receive monies from government than there should be nothing wrong with our industry also receiving the same funds from government.

It's high time we begin to educate ourselves of the role of musiga and rather push government to help them so they can also help solve some of the industry problems.

Musicians should empower their association Musiga to enable them lobby government for more finance and policies and if members want to deal with issues regarding to their royalties they should visit the offices of Ghamro.

Let's strengthen and empower our associations so they can fight for our rights effectively instead of this crabology which has become part of our DNA.

#OneIndustry #OneLove