Nana Addo reveals plans for Creative Arts

The plans include the building of theatres in every regional capital except Accra to address the crucial age-long challenge the lack of auditoriums and venues for entertainment events have created for the creative arts sector.

Also, in Nana Addo’s plans for the creative arts sector is to create a new division of the high court that will be well-equipped to focus on the creative arts and address all matters relating to intellectual property rights and legal challenges that often pop up within the creative arts sector.

The NPP revealed the plans in the party’s manifesto titled ‘An Agenda For Jobs; Creating Opportunities & Prosperity For All’.

It said promised to aggressively promote domestic tourism with a sense of urgency and also establish a special fund for creative arts.

Below are excerpts of the NPP’s manifesto on tourism, culture and creative arts:

The NPP government will focus on transforming the country into a major meeting, incentive, conference, & exhibition (MICE) centre, as well as on expanding the tourism sector, through investment, innovation, the pursuit of service excellence and meaningful partnerships.

This will enable tourism to become a major revenue generating sector that provides safe, memorable and enjoyable experience for tourists.

We will:

1. aggressively develop our tourist sites to bring them to world class standards, complete with the requisite amenities and facilities

2. pursue a deliberate marketing programme to promote our unique historical sites, flora and fauna, waterfalls and other cultural artefacts.

3. take the staffing of these tourist sites and our hospitality industry as a whole seriously. To improve professionalism in the sector, we will partner with the private sector to set up a state-of-the-art hospitality teaching facility, with an operational hotel, classrooms, kitchens, library, and dormitories

4. encourage local communities to take ownership and be invested in the sustainability of tourist attractions in their localities, The NPP will champion a revenue sharing programme to inject five percent of tourism revenues from fees of well-developed tourist attractions into local community projects

5. promote domestic tourism, by making it an aggressive plank of our tourism strategy with a marketing drive centred on entrenching a tourism culture among Ghanaians

6. review and actively implement the culture policy developed under the Kufuor-led NPP government to give our culture pride of place in our national development.

7. build a detailed inventory of all our cultural assets, so the nation has a database of these assets.

8. the Copyright Act 2005 (Act 690), among other provisions, provides for the protection of Adinkra symbols and the older Kente designs as expression of folklore. The NPP will ensure that the provisions regarding the protection of Kente and Adinkra designs are strictly enforced against illicit exploitation by foreign interests, to enable the country to maximize revenue through the proper marketing of these heirlooms.

9. establish a creative arts fund to make available funds to modernize and develop the sector

10.create a division of the high court, focusing on the creative arts to deal with all matters relating to intellectual property rights, complete with a dedicated enforcement unit

11.establish a creative arts council to coordinate and harmonize the various interests and fragmented associations into a well-functioning body to protect the interests of members.

12. collaborate with private sector interests to acquire the technology and equipment needed to log creative works, in order to determine true and deserved royalties.

13. promote regional and district literature, music, dance and drama competitions, particularly in schools and colleges, and

14. pursue the construction of modern large seating theatres in every regional capital except Accra, beginning with Takoradi, Tamale and Kumasi, as well as setting up an additional copyright office in Tamale to cater for the northern sector in addition to the existing ones in Accra and Kumasi.