Former Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Arts, Abla Dzifa Gomashie has said successive governments cannot be held responsible for the misfortunes the Arts industry is facing.

Expressing her thoughts on why after sixty-two [62] years of Independence, the Arts Industry in Ghana is still in disarray, the veteran actress said practitioners in the industry should not heap all blame on politicians.

She admitted that the pace at which the Arts Industry is growing is nothing to write home about but the practitioners can bear with other successive governments of making meaningful inputs regarding infrastructure.

“We never had a Ministry for Creative Arts but because Tourism sector was already in existence, it overshadowed the Arts sector.

“During my tenure as the Deputy Tourism, Culture and Arts Minister, we were almost done with the legal framework where it gives the Ghana Civil Service the possibility to determine whether the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture will need three different directors to help the deputy and the substantive Minister to see how best they can restructure the three domain especially the Arts sector which was already suffering.

“Additionally, we agreed that if we have a strong civil society based organization which will be a link between the Ministry and the practitioners so we engaged the Ghana Cultural Forum.

“We were at a point of engaging the industry players when unfortunately we [NDC] were booted out of Government.

“I have also observed that the Arts industry as it was back in the day, isn’t as vibrant now.”

According to her, because the NDC Government is no more in power, she can not state emphatically that the current NPP government is continuing with where the previous government left off.

“Arts sector was formally merged with Education, Information, Commission on Culture and Chieftaincy but as a domain on its own, it was never so. So we can’t blame politicians for not helping the Arts sector.

“We never really had a home until the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture was established by the Executive Instrument [EI 2013] by Ex-President John Dramani Mahama.”

Responding to whether Ghana’s Arts sector is making great strides after 62 years of self-rule, Dzifa Gomashie said, it is rather sad that the progress of the industry has been delayed when the NDC government was voted out of Government.

“Truth be told, the progress we’re making when I was in active service has been delayed. We should have gone in leaps and bounds but what we need to promote the Arts sector is infrastructure both tangible and intangible.

“We need to train people for the sector even after you have been provided with the infrastructure. As a Ministry that was really formed, the Committee that was formed to look at the Creative Arts Bill included the Head of NAFTI, some industry giants who were advising the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture on the way forward.” She told Eddie Ray on Kasapa Entertainment on Kasapa 102.5FM

The one time revered Ghanaian actress and ex-Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Dzifa Gomashie, recently announced her retirement from acting career.

She said she would no longer be working as an actress.

According to her, she wants to focus on her political career as a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Listen to the audio below.