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13.06.2007 General News

Miss African Beauty Pageant is a ripp off- Contestants cry foul

13.06.2007 LISTEN
By myjoyonline

In a separate telephone interview with the reigning Miss African Beauty queen Miss Mbillah, she appeared very shocked completely unaware of what her colleagues are saying.

She did confirm however that she has heard rumors about the whole farce going on about the pageant of which she is the reigning queen.

"I must admit I don't know anything about this because I traveled and just got back to Accra a couple of days ago but I will go to the office in the course of the week to find out what this whole thing is about. To be honest it would be totally unfair if what my colleagues are saying is true".

She fell short of talking about her winning package because it is been alleged by her fellow contestants that she had to be paid off simply because she is the reigning queen and she would be needed to help promote the pageant which in actual fact had the Ghanaian version launched last week at the plush Alisa Hotel last weekend.

Omar a bilingual event organizer and promoter who is now acting as the spokesperson for the contestants said it has taken them this while to come out and fight for their rights simply because Ayesha told him that; "she is a big woman with links to people in authority so she doesn't care where they take the story to.

In fact her statement made us sit up a bit but now we are up and there is no turning back. We are taking it to a higher platform now because this pageant might not come on because we will do our best to take this matter onto the international arena and inform the countries in the sub-region to be aware of what she is made up of.

Interestingly, Omar together with Abeiku Santana and Baisiwa Dowuona Hammond ofTV3 anchored the event last year and are yet to be paid.

He was also the aide to Ayesha and he helped in getting three ladies from the sub region to participate in the contest.

"The treatment meted out to the ladies was very bad. They were housed in a no go area somewhere in Legon where nobody could visit them and they had to eat food they were not used to".

All attempts to contact Ayesha on phone have proved unsuccessful. The calls were picked by her secretary or were just not answered.

Does all beauty pageants and some events organized in this country have to end this way? Are event organizers just exploiting the ladies or are just in to make their

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