GRi in Parliament
Ghana 19 - 02 - 2001
Parliament undecided on day to begin debate
Accra
(Greater Accra) 19 February 2001
Parliament
on Friday called for the re-establishment of the Arts Council of Ghana to boost
tourism and to properly harnessed the arts to earn foreign exchange for the
country.
Its
re-establishment will make the numerous institutions and bodies which try on
their own to make ends meet in the arts industry not to be acting as orphans in
the absence of a national body to co-ordinate their activities.
Mr Nkrabeah
Effah-Dartey, NPP MP for Berekum in a statement to the House wondered why the
Arts Council, which was established during the First Republic as an agency that
took care of the arts was abolished.
He said a
nation's culture encompasses "creative works that display form, beauty and
perceptions - painting, sculpture, architecture, music, literature, drama and
dance."
"When
we talk of the ARTS, we are referring to the structures and artistic activities
that seek to create, nurture and develop areas in performing and visual
arts," he added.
Mr
Effah-Dartey said it is agreed that there is a national theatre which only
stands as one outfit for the arts and that when it is fully operational it
would still not be an answer to the needs of an overall national agency for
co-ordinating all works of art.
He said
there is a National Commission on Culture, which could be said to have an
overall responsibility for the arts, yet the closest concern by the Commission
is in having a director of programmes without specifying what sort of
programmes he directs.
The
Commission with other responsibilities can hardly be seen as an answer to the
need for an identifiable agency to handle the area of arts - music, dance,
drama, sculpture, painting and architectural designs, he said.
Mr
Effah-Dartey asked why the council was abolished without putting in place any
mechanism for taking care of the units that constitute its schedule.
Listing a
number of institutions and bodies that try on their own to make ends meet in
the arts industry as orphans, he said, they do so in the absence of no parent
national body to see to their interest.
Supporting
the statement, Mr Kofi Attor NDC-Ho Central said the arts are the expression of
a nation's spirit that drive it to high achievements.
"A
word in a musical composition, the brush of a painter, an architectural design
could speak volumes of a people's culture, history and the environment".
Mr. Attor
said the country is loosing a lot in creative activities because they are not
identified and harnessed and if this is not done "we shall still be
playing Shakespeare follow other cultures blindly and throw our own away."
He said we
could only have positive change if the arts are brought back.
Mr. David
Y. Mensah, NDC-Atebubu North said when a nation abandons its culture, then it
is lost forever. He said "it is shameful that the Black Man is not proud
of his colour and wants to imbibe everything Western to the neglect of
his."
He said the
proliferation of spiritual churches was even worsening the cultural identity
problem, because they are making the young and the unguarded to believe that
there is a divine spirit to making life rosy.
Mr Mensah
invited Parliament "to visit the spiritual churches and to observe
self-proclaimed bishops and spiritual leaders to see the damage they are
causing to the youth and our culture".
GRi…/
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Parliament undecided on day to begin debate
Accra
(Greater Accra) 19 February 2001
The
Business Committee will advise the House on Tuesday, February 20, on when to
start the debate on President John Agyekum Kufuor's sessional address on the
state of the nation to Parliament.
The House
was unable to fix a definite day because copies of the address, which was
delivered on Thursday February 15, were not served on the members.
Mr J.H.
Mensah, Majority Leader said there was a technical hitch that made it
impossible for members to have copies of the address when he was presenting the
seventh week Business Statement.
He said the
Majority wished the debate to start on Tuesday by which time all the members
would have their copies.
Following
exchanges from both sides of the House, the Speaker, Mr Peter Ala Adjetey ruled
that the leadership of the House met on Tuesday morning to thrash out the issue
early enough for a decision to be taken.
GRi…/
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comments to news@ghanareview.com