Okraku Mantey Can Achieve Nothing For Creative Arts Industry- Rex Omar

Ghanaian highlife artiste Rex Omar is firm in his conviction that next to nothing can be achieved with a member of the creative Arts Industry, Mark Okraku Mantey in government as the Deputy Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture.

He is an ardent believer that it would take a government determined to improve the sector to reposition it.

“He is a deputy Minister. He can’t deliver anything… He can’t deliver so I don’t expect too much from him,” he asserted in an interview on JoyNews monitored by opemsuo.com.

The former head of the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO) says he held his reservations concerning the appointment of former Creative Arts Council President Mark Okraku Mantey in 2021.

“When he became a deputy minister, I said that there is nothing he can do. It must be your government’s policy to develop tourism and the creative arts industry first. If the government doesn’t take the creative arts and tourism industry seriously, as a Ministry, you can’t even achieve anything when you become the deputy Minster. The Minister himself is struggling, how much more the deputy.”

The appointment of Okraku Mantey was welcomed by industry players who thought the industry would receive the needed government attention it had been starved of for years.

However, over the years, some players have registered their disappointment in him.

Ghanaian musician Kelvyn Boy in a tweet said the Deputy Minister had grown “awfully silent” on the industry after his appointment.

Meanwhile, media personality Kofi Okyere Darko known as (KKD) in an interview is quoted to have said, “Maybe there was no clear-cut plan for what to do with the creative space. When our brother Mark Okraku-Mantey was appointed, many people said, ‘Oh, this is one of us’, but up until now, I have not seen much from him as a person. In actual fact, you can’t even access him, you want him to do something for you, and you have to deal with him like any other person, not like one of us who has been elevated. He has forgotten why he was elevated. We thought someone like him would be a mouthpiece for us. But I am disappointed in what the government has done. They could have done more for us.”