The President of the Foundation of Concerned Arts Professionals (FOCAP), Kojo Preko Danquah, says the promises made by the New Patriotic Party's (NPP) flagbearer for the creative arts industry are appalling.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia whilst addressing the nation on February 7, said that he would increase private and public investment in tourism and the creative arts and that he will focus particularly on policies, tax and other incentives.

Among other things, he proposed the creation of digital and streaming platforms for artistes and said that his government would introduce tax incentives for film producers and musicians.

• Read also: I will introduce digital and streaming platforms for artists – Bawumia 

Mr Danquah, reacting to these promises, said these assurances to the creative arts industry are not novel and hold no significance.

“Dr Bawumia has lost track of all the things that his own party or himself had said. He has nothing to offer per what I have seen and my reaction to whatever he said on the creative arts. He has nothing to offer the creative arts sector

"It is appalling and it is not something that FOCAP will want to accept,” he told JoyNews on February 8.

In the 2020 Manifesto of NPP, similar promises were made to the creative arts industry.

“We will build a digital platform for artists to make their products available to the global market,” the NPP stated. 

Some of the NPP's unfulfilled promises are the setting up of the Creative Arts Fund to support artists, and the construction of theatres in Kumasi, Takoradi and Tamale.

• Read also: Government to improve Creative Arts Industry

The NPP 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." That promise has also not been fulfilled.

Finally, the construction of a convention and exhibition centre at the Ghana Trade Fair Company site, La has not been completed.