Feature: The dwindling credibility of Music Award schemes in Ghana — Austine Woode writes

The more Ghanaians vote, the more these awards schemes make money so they are never willing to spend enough money to get credible awards.

Last night, the 2nd edition of 3music awards came off at the Fantasy Dome in Accra and after the event, the usual brouhaha over almost every awards scheme in Ghana over “right” or deserving winners is currently ongoing.

The problem with 3music awards and the winners is they’ve left so much voting power to the general public hence they vote based on fanaticism. I’ve always said any voting process that allows one person to vote more than once is flawed and not fit for purpose'

Until award organizers are willing to spend on getting a credible voting system, these kinds of dodgy winners will always get tongues wagging.

The voting scheme now doesn’t show that an artiste is popular but sometimes those who win get less of their fans voting more.

HOW TO CURE IT

There’s a population census data that is scientifically proven so use that to spread voting across Ghana by administrative districts. So if Kumasi’s population is 13% of Ghana, assemble 13% of say 5000 ordinary Ghanaians to vote representing Kumasi.

That will at least be credible statistically and representative of the country. Also you can easily measure the popularity of awards by radio airplay. So go to every radio, say Bee FM, let the DJs and presenters vote individually, the artiste with highest vote gets B FM vote of 1

There are about 400 radio stations in Ghana so you would have solved the problem of radio popularity and it will be representative of the whole country. After this, that is where the academy selects based on their knowledge and expertise in music both on grounds and online

Also categories like fan army can be left to only the public to vote because that is to test how strong fans of a particular artiste are. However certain technical categories like vocal performer, video and rapper should be voted only by technical people of about 100

God continue to bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong