Paa John

The Organizers of the sixth Ghana Music Awards (GMA) has pledged their commitment to use the event to promote Ghanaian music, Mr Pajohn Bentsifi Dadson, Head of Combination at Charter House, a private event management company in Accra, said on Tuesday.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview, Mr. Dadson said over the 5 years that the event had been organised, it had created a platform for many of the Award winners to move ahead to greater heights and the international scene.

He said it had helped to shape the music industry and given a sense of direction to many musicians in the country, adding that, the GMA was a "people's choice" award to appreciate works in the music industry that generated public excitement within a period.

Mr. Dadson described criticism of last year's Awards, as unfortunate and personal saying Charter House was not using the event to promote its favourites, adding that, the selection process made it difficult for Charter House to influence it in any way.

He said that the GMA panel was made up of eminent and objective personnel forming the nominations, selection and planning committees and that no one could say that it was using the scheme to award musicians of its choice.

"As a human institution we are bound to have problem somewhere, but we hope to strive for excellence as we move ahead and improve on it. The Organising Committee of the Ghana Music Awards is prepared to improve the Awards," he said.

"Nothing much has changed this year the same process that was used in the previous years would be used this year to select those who deserve the awards" he added.

Mr. Dadson said plans were fair advance to establish a Hall of Fame to honour many of our musicians in the country. He said Charter House always gave a percentage of the gate proceeds at the Awards to the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), adding, "Even when last year we didn't make profit we still gave some money to the Music Union"

The Ghana Music Awards initiated by the company since its inception in 2000 has being organised under the auspices of MUSIGA, the Ghana National Commission on Culture and the Ministry of Tourism.

Public voting for Award winners constitutes 30 per cent, the Selection Committee 35 per cent and the Planning Committee 35 per cent. This years event dubbed "music festival" would run from Thursday April 28 to Monday May 2, 2005 would take place at the Accra International Conference Centre.