You are here: HomeNews1997 10 31Article 2778

General News of Friday, 31 October 1997

Source: --

Copyright Committee Call For Probe

Accra, (Greater Accra) 30 Oct.,

The Copyright Protection Committee (CPC) and the Interim Management Committee of the Association of Recording Industry of Ghana (ARIGH) today called for a probe into all sections of the music industry in Ghana to rid it of mismanagement, misappropriation and economic sabotage against the state. At a joint press conference in Accra, a spokesman for the group, Mr. Faisal Helwani, said it has come to their notice that the leadership of the Copyright Society of Ghana (COSGA), former executives of ARIGH and the office of the former Copyright Administrator, Mrs. Betty Mould-Iddrisu, were all involved in fraudulent deals which cost the nation and everybody in the music industry millions of cedis. Flanked by top musicians like Stan Plange, Charles Amoah, Rex Boateng, Sammy Odoh and Kofi Sammy, among others, Mr. Helwani distributed documents to support the allegations. He said ''we are showing you these documents to remove all doubts in the minds of the public and bring to the notice of the authorities these allegations into which we demand an immediate state probe''. They suggested that the probe should be constituted by representatives of the Serious Fraud Office, the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service and the Internal Revenue Service. The two committees, he said, are not on a witch hunt, but want to instill into the music industry, strict accountability and probity that will eliminate all forms of corruption and racketeering that has plagued the sector over the past five years. Mr. Helwani referred to correspondence between the executive of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) signed by its General Secretary, Nana Kwame Ampadu, and the Commissioner of CEPS in September 1993, requesting for a waiver of 40 per cent levy on the importation of blank audio and video cassettes, which was granted. ''Under this concession, which is supposed to benefit members of the various associations within the music Industry, none of us knows over the past five years, how many of such cassettes have entered the country under this arrangement and who benefited from them". He said in one such instance, Liner Agencies (Ghana) Limited delivered a container with 940 cartons, each of 200 blank audio cassettes, in November 1996, following another appeal for a 20 per cent special levy waiver, by ARIGH, signed by its former president, D. Essilfie-Bondzie. ''The strange thing is that the importation was done by Nulec Industries Limited, a private cassette manufacturing company, and sold on the open market, for which no producer, composer or performer benefited. And this runs into millions of cedis". In the latest incident in April this year, another waiver was requested by Mr. Essilfie-Bondzie for the importation of 500,000 blank audio cassettes and 500,000 blank Video cassettes, Mr. Helwani added.