Last Saturday, the issue was finally put to rest or so it seemed. The organisers of the Ghana Music Awards told musicians and other stake holders in the Ghana music industry that they could not afford cars or houses as prizes for award winners. The submission by Mrs Theresa Ayoade, Events Director of Charter House, the GMA should be seen as an instrument through which creative pursuit are duly recognised and not is the most convincing argument to date regarding the issue of prizes. Many musicians have in the past called for monetary and other “more valuable” prizes for the awards. At this year’s launch of the GMA, the President of the musicians union himself, Alhaji Sidiku Buari called on the organisers to consider giving cars and houses as prizes instead of statuettes. Last Saturday at a meeting of the GMA Selection Committee, Kwame Mikki of Kaakyire Music Productions repeated the call to GMA to provide award winners with valuable prizes. But according to Mrs Ayoade, “the music industry is a multi million dollar industry on its own. Musicians, producers and other industry players receive remuneration for their works through album sales, royalties and other avenues so the GMA should not be regarded as a means through which artistes can receive remuneration,” she told the meeting. “The awards given by the GMA should not be equated to that of beauty pageants and music talents hunts which offer cars and cash prizes because those are amateurs competitions. “Musicians like the ones GMA deals with are professionals in their own right and it is expected that they can afford those luxury items themselves. The Ghana Music Award Scheme is merely in recognition of their talents and accomplishments”, she added. Over the last seven years, the Ghana Music Awards event has become Ghana’s authentic music industry awards. Saturday’s Selection Committee meeting was supervised by KPMG events statisticians. They oversaw the deliberations of the about 60 people made up of musical representatives from all over the 10 regions of the country- arts and entertainment writers and critics, radio presenters, sound and live PA engineers and other musical industry players who answered the invitation of the organisers. Source: Graphic Showbiz