Accra, Feb. 11, GNA - Musicians have being urged to close their ranks and present a unifying front in order to attract the needed support from Government.

Mr Stephen Asamoah Boateng, Deputy Minister of Tourism and Modernization of the Capital City said this on Saturday, when he lunched the 7th Ghana Music Awards dubbed "Ghana Music Awards Festival" in Accra.

He said the time has come for musicians to come together and present their issues so as to give government a clear-cut way to assist them.

The Minister said the music industry has a lot to offer to a developing country like Ghana and as such, every effort must be put in place to recognize this.

Mr Asamoah also expressed the Ministry's commitment to assist the music industry to move the country forward.

Mrs Theresa Ayoade, Event Director of Charter House, the event organisers, promised to use the Ghana Music Awards Festival to sell the country abroad.

"For this year's event, we plan to invite renowned musicians on the continent, like Awillo longomba, Rebecca Malope, Sammy Opkoso and Blue to be part of the event," she said.

She said the event would receive much patronage from other African countries, because the organisers have engaged vigorous advertisements on international media like MTV base, BBC and CNN to attract more people to the events

Mrs Ayoade said, as part of the 7th anniversary celebration, the Ghana Music Festival will run for five days, while the official commencement of the awards would be on Thursday, March 2, 2006. She said there would be a Ghana Music Industry awards and Highlife night, which would seek to award those in the industry by the industry itself.

This, she said would be followed by a Music Award Conference on Friday March 3, 2006 to deliberate on pertinent issues affecting the development of the music industry in Ghana.

Mrs Ayoade added that Saturday March 4 would be the Ghana Music Awards night, which would be held at the Accra International Conference Centre, adding that Sunday, March 5, would witness the biggest gospel rock show ever to be staged and would be held at the Christian Action Faith Ministry.

The events would be climaxed with a plush beach jam at the La Beach Resort on Monday, March 6, 2006.

Mrs Ayoade further called for institutional support to move the music awards forward and raise it to a higher level.

" It is unfortunate that in Ghana, we always have to rely on cooperate organisations for support, which is not good enough, whiles in other countries on the continent it the government and the music industry that support such events," she stressed.

Alhaji Sidiku Buari, President of the Musicians Union of Ghana urged the event organizers to go the extra mile to ensure that adequate protection and safety measures were put in place to protect musicians and other artistes that may perform during he functions. " Once an artistes has been invited to perform at functions then the organizers have a duty to ensure that they are safe with their equipment during and after the programme," he said.

The MUSIGA President also warned that the association would be held responsible for any individual or group, who invited an artiste and failed to provide them with the needed security.

He said it was unfortunate that for a long time, musicians have not been regarded as serious people, whose industry needed the kind of incentives accorded other professionals. Alhaji Sidiku Buari also expressed worries about musicians, who sell their works outright to producers without any good contract going with it.

He assured all musicians that the Union would insist on fair play in the awards as they have done in previous years. 11 Feb. 2006