President of the Ghana Music Rights Organization (GHAMRO), Rex Owusu Marfo, popularly known as Rex Omar, has said that musicians will not receive their royalties this December, and this occurrence he says must be blamed on the Government.
The ‘Dada Di Da’ hit maker, in an interview with an Accra-based radio station, explained that the Government through the Ministry of Finance has refused to pay their due levy to musicians, making it hard for GHAMRO to disburse any money to musicians this December.
Answering the question on why the organization will not be able to pay the musicians their royalties, he further revealed that because he is actively involved in politics, it becomes difficult for him to come out and harangue the government for the fear of what other people will say about him.
“The truth of the matter is that this December, it is rather unfortunate and it hurts me to say that we had a board meeting, and it is clear that we can’t share any money to our musicians. Most of the time, because I am active in politics, when the government is at fault or when they do something wrong, I can’t come out to make it known, because people will say I am doing politics.
“Four months ago, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) told us the whole of this year, we have 2.5 million Ghana Cedis. We have been moving up and down on this money because, even though we have taken some monies on our own, we need to add the money from the Government to the one we have and then we disburse it”.
Giving a detailed account on how much they were supposed to have disbursed to some 4,000 musicians registered under GHAMRO, he revealed that, they had estimated 2.5 million Ghana cedis, however, the government have said 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.
“If this 2.5 million Ghana cedi is made available, after the deductions, GHAMRO will have 700,000 to add to the money we already have and disburse. Just yesterday, however, 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? “
According to him, another reason GHAMRO cannot disburse the money is that the organization has been badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and all efforts to get the Government to come to their aid have proven futile.
“COVID affected us massively. When COVID-19 came, we made a request through NBSSI but they didn’t give us any money. The money we had, we shared it among our people in April to support them. We originally had about 37 staff, laid off 20 and reduced the salaries of the 17 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.
It hasn’t been long since Rex Omar came out to question why entertainers are being hated for involving themselves in politics.
Rex Omar further fumed at the people who swore never to patronize the works of someone in the entertainment industry, who has openly endorsed a political party and called for a change in the narrative.
