Reggae Dancehall Artiste, Stonebwoy, has called on government to critically prioritise the creative arts sector.

According to him, without the government creating a conducive atmosphere for creative industries to thrive, Ghana will not be able to realise its full potential on the global creative arts scene.

Ghana’s creative arts sector, according to some players, has been in decline for a while.

With government not investing much into its development, there are fears that the creative arts sector, particularly the movie industry will totally collapse.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Stonebwoy, said the government must be intentional about developing the creative arts sector in order to reap of its benefits.

Referring to Nigeria’s creative arts boom, he said it took the deliberate investment by the Nigerian government into the arts sector.

“Once upon a time, the government of Nigeria took a decision and gradually turned things around. I think this can be verified by some of the top gurus of Ghana music. And so therefore I think we can replicate such and such.

“There’s the creative arts side that exists, I think the President himself must be very interested. Because it is such that I know that there are so many things going on, but just to make a perfect example, that President at the time was specifically involved and called and said, ‘how? Why? Listen, you come, how do we do this? Put that together, put this together and they started the revolution of turning the 419 that everybody was aware of or whatever into the afrobeat giant of today,” he said.

Stonebwoy says the government must take steps to make the country’s creative arts scene attractive to investors.

“So these are the pointers, government has to be very very involved, our creative and arts structures have to really work, we have to invest, we have to make it encouraging for people to be able to invest in the movies, the music, the arts basically because they’re moving hand in hand. The Nigerian movies are speeding; they’re featuring in different heights so that is it. We need to pay critical attention,” he said.

He added, “Like some older person drew my attention, when you take like a PNP the entertainment news is at the back. That tells you the priority that is placed on creative arts in this country. I don’t think that we place priority on creative arts so well enough to be able to ‘compete’ on the global levels, because I don’t see a competition, I only see representation.

“Because once you’re pushing well enough you will represent for yourself, nobody can deny your place when it comes to creative arts you just need to be seen and pushed.  Because we have gurus who are of Ghanaian origin who reside abroad who can actually lend a hand when authorities want to.”