The vice president of Ghana and leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, has declared that if he is elected president of Ghana, he will grant tax breaks to some artists.
“Musicians and film producers will also receive tax incentives,” he declared on February 7, 2024, at a public lecture at the University of Professional Studies (UPSA) in Accra.
The talk, “Ghana’s Next Chapter: Selfless Leadership and Bold Solutions for the Future,” outlined Dr. Bawumia’s goals should he be appointed to lead the country’s affairs.
Additionally, he pledged to provide online venues for Ghanaian musicians.
“We will introduce other initiatives such as digital and streaming platforms for our artists to make tourism and the creative arts a growth pole in Ghana,” he said.
This specific clause about the creative industry was included in the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) 2020 Manifesto.
“We will build a digital platform for artists to make their products available to the global market,” the NPP stated.
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Dr. Bawumia also pledged to expand on Ghana’s Beyond the Return, December celebration of the Year of Return during his talk.
Finally, he said “to boost tourism and job creation, my government will implement an e-visa policy for all international visitors to Ghana to enable visas to be obtained in minutes subject to security and criminal checks.”
The NPP’s unfulfilled commitments to culture and the arts
Stakeholders in the creative industry have taken the New Patriotic Party (NPP) very seriously because of its broken promises.
The establishment of the Creative Arts Fund to assist artists and the building of theaters in Kumasi, Takoradi, and Tamale are only a couple of the unmet promises made by the NPP.
In addition, the NPP declared that “as part of the entrepreneurial hub’s strategy, we will establish, in partnership with the private sector, large recording studios in Accra, Kumasi, Tamale, and Takoradi, given that our artistes do not have the capital to set up studios.” Recording artists can lease space in these studios to record their music. Furthermore, this promise has not been kept.
Lastly, work on the conference and exposition center still needs to be done at the Ghana Trade Fair Company location in Louisiana.
