The Vice President and flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamadu Bawumia has promised to introduce digital and streaming platforms for Ghanaian artists if he is elected as President.
According to Dr. Bawumia, this will contribute significantly to the creative industry in the country.
He said this during his lecture dubbed ‘Ghana’s Next Chapter: Selfless Leadership and Bold Solutions for the Future’ at the University of Professional Studies in Accra on February 7, 2024.
“We will introduce other initiatives such as digital and streaming platforms for our artists to make tourism and the creative arts a growth pole in Ghana,” he said.
Dr. Bawumia while addressing Ghanaians also promised to build on the Year of Return, Beyond the Return, December in Ghana.
He further emphasised that “tax incentives will also be provided for film producers and musicians.”
The Vice President said “to boost tourism and job creation, my government will implement an e-visa policy for all international visitors to Ghana to enable visas to be obtained in minutes subject to security and criminal checks.”
This is not the first time the New Patriotic Party’s government has made such a promise. The party in its 2020 manifesto made same promise of creating a digital platform for musicians.
“We will build a digital platform for artists to make their products available to the global market,” the party’s manifesto noted.
Other previous promises made by the NPP government include; setting up of the Creative Arts Fund to support artists and the construction of theatres in Kumasi, Takoradi and Tamale.
The party also promised that “given that our artistes do not have the capital to set up studios, we will, as part of the entrepreneurial hub’s strategy, establish, in partnership with the private sector, large recording studios in Accra, Kumasi, Tamale and Takoradi. Recording artists can rent space to do the recordings in these studios.”
However, all of these promises are yet to be fulfilled by the government. This has caused many stakeholders in the creative industry to criticise government for failing to bring to bear its promises.