Fourth SAMA awards launched in Accra

Accra, Dec.15 GNA - The Fourth Sunshine Arts, Music and Achievers Awards (SAMA) 2006, which aims at reviving and promoting Ghanaian indigenous music was launched in Accra on Thursday. The maiden edition was held in 1999 and the awards for next year will take place in April 2006.

The SAMA awards, which is on the theme: "Promoting our culture" would honour musicians, sound engineers, actors and composers in twenty eight different categories which include the Kente award, Edikanfo award, Damba award and the Evergreen Highlife Tune. Okyeame Kwame Bediako, President of SAMA said the award was to create awareness and the love for unadulterated Ghanaian music, which the old and the young could appreciate and dance to. He urged Ghanaians to rediscover their cultural values and be well grounded in it.

He said the awards would also display to the rest of the world the rich African cultural identity and the need to use it as the basis for future development. Togbe Ehlah, Acting Director of Arts at the National Commission on Culture called for support for people in the Ghanaian music and arts industry.

He said government must also invest more in the country's tourism sector to provide employment to the youth as well as generate revenue for the nation.