The manager and husband of award-winning Ghanaian gospel artist, Celestine Donkor has taken to his social media to lament after the Ghana Music Rights Organization (GHAMRO) sent them an amount of 390.04 Ghana Cedis as their royalties.
Kofi Donkor who was upset by the amount sent, took to his Facebook page to share a screenshot of the money sent by GHAMRO and stated how shameful and disappointed he is in the organization. Mr. Donkor also called on his other colleagues in the music industry to come together to make things right. Celestine
He captioned one of his posts, “We need to do everything possible to get the structures working so such insults will be a thing of the past! Very shameful! Let’s wake up Music Right Owners!! Enough is enough!”
Kofi Donkor in another post gave details on his works and the number of music he has produced. He disclosed that he produced 5 albums and 2 singles and therefore does not understand why GHAMRO should pay him such a “ridiculous amount of money”.
“Let me bring out another angle to this conversation. I have executively produced 5 albums and 2 singles. This is what I got for almost 2years! My artiste has 5 albums, 2 singles with our label. She has 8 features with other Ghanaian artists all registered with GHAMRO. Interestingly she received GHS294. I am completely lost! I honestly do not blame the leadership of GHAMBRO for this insult. I blame us, the Music Right Owners! Yes!”.
Kofi Donkor
GHAMRO to Pay Royalties to Artists
Well, it seems there will be more artists who will not be happy about the royalties they are entitiled to or will be receiving as GHAMRO announced that it will be distributing royalties to members effective Wednesday, December 23, 2021, to the end of January 2022.
In a released statement, the Director of Communications for GHAMRO, Prince Tsegah, indicated that the distribution will be in two folds; the General and the Title Specific which also includes monies received from CAPASSO of South Africa for works used on the online digital platforms.
The statement read in parts: “Whilst the general distribution will ensure that Right Owners receive royalty payments across the board, the title specific will cater for monitored logs from local networks and the online streaming distribution”.
According to the statement, to provide access for the benefit of Right Owners, GHAMRO will publish the names of Artiste/Right Owners whose works have accrued royalties to enable them to update and regularize the documentation needed.
Contrary to this, in December last year, President GHAMRO, Rex Omar, announced that musicians will not receive their royalties as he blamed the occurrence an impromptu decision made by the government.
The ‘Dada Di Da’ hitmaker explained that the Government through the Ministry of Finance refused to pay the due levy to musicians, making it hard for GHAMRO to disburse any money to musicians.
Giving a detailed account of how much they were supposed to disburse to some 4,000 musicians registered under GHAMRO, he revealed that, they had estimated 2.5 million Ghana cedis. However, the government stated that they cannot provide them that money and would instead give them 700,000 which he described as ‘small’ due to the number of people who have to share that money.
“I received information that the government says it can’t 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 over 4,000 musicians?”
Rex Omar
