Musicians urged to bury their differences

Mrs. Diana Hopeson, President of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), on Wednesday appealed to members to bury their differences, unite and promote the music industry.

She observed that due to disunity among members some producers were taking undue advantage of that situation to exploit musicians.

Mrs. Hopeson was addressing a closing ceremony of a three-day training workshop, organized in Koforidua for MUSIGA and Actors Guild of Ghana, by the Trade Union Congress (TUC), with sponsorship from the Fredrick Ebert Foundation.

She observed that the members were not being paid good salaries resulting in some of them dying as paupers and called for a united front towards redressing the situation.

Mrs. Hopeson appealed to government to expedite action on the Legislative Instrument (LI) on the Copyright Right Law 2005 to save the industry from collapsing.

She said currently, the music industry employed over 21,000 people and everything possible should be done to sustain it.

Nii Odoi Mensah, President of the Actors Guild, commended the TUC for organizing the workshop and said the association had not regretted joining the TUC.

He said Guilt had benefited from the TUC within a short period of joining the Congress and appealed to those sitting on the fence join Guild.

Nii Mensah said actors had a very important role to play in society and appealed to the media to promote their activities instead of that of foreign actors.

Mr. Kofi Asamoah, Secretary General of the TUC, said the union recognized the important role of the MUSIGA and the Actors Guild in society.

He reiterated the commitment of the TUC to safeguarding the associations and asked members to constantly upgrade their skills to be marketable.

Mr Asamoah advised them to explore the possibility of enlarging their markets to include other countries in the West African sub-region.