Blame the government if you don’t get your royalties this December – Rex Omar to Musicians

Animation for Monday, December 21, 2020

Source: Happy 98.9FM

2020-12-21

The Ghana Music Rights Organization (GHAMRO) has said that musicians will not receive their royalties this December and this fact, it says, must be the fault of the government.

The president of the organization, Rex Omar, in an interview with Doctar Cann of Happy FM on the program ‘Showbiz Xtra’, explained that the Government through the Ministry of Finance has refused to pay the fee due to the musicians, which makes it difficult for GHAMRO to fork out any money to musicians this December.

“Four months ago, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) told us that this whole year we have 2.5 million Ghana Cedis. We have been going up and down with this money because even though we have taken some funds on our own, we need to add the government money to what we have and then we disburse it.

If these 2.5 million Ghana cedi are available, after deductions GHAMRO will have 700,000 to add to the money we already have and disburse.

However, yesterday I received information that the government says it cannot give us 2.5 million Ghana Cedis and that it will give us 700,000 Ghana Cedis. How do we disburse such a small amount to more than 4,000 musicians? “

According to him, GHAMRO has been seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and all efforts to get the Government to come to its aid have been useless. “

“When COVID-19 came, we applied through NBSSI but they didn’t give us money. The money we had, we shared it among our people in April to support them. We originally had about 37 employees, we laid off 20 and cut 17 salaries by 70 percent, “he added.

Rex Omar insisted that if there was anyone to blame for this mishap, it should be the Government and not him.