Musician, Producer and former President of MUSIGA, Alhaji Sidiku Buari, has lamented the poor wages paid to actors and actresses in the Ghanaian movie industry.
He believes that the situation is forestalling development in the movie industry.
Comparing Ghana’s situation to Nigeria, the former MUSIGA boss noted that Nigeria is ahead of Ghana in the movie industry, not because they have better talents, but because they treat their talents better.
He shared on the Y Leaderboard Series with Rev. Erskine: “We still have a lot of talents here in this country who are so good. Unfortunately, the money they are paid is scanty and one will not be proud of himself if he is getting paid this low. The payment for actors and actresses is too low. They [actors] sometimes spend so much money to buy costume”.
Alhaji Sidiku, however, assured that Ghana can establish itself in the movie industry, only if it is ready to set a standard of payment for actors and actresses.
“There should be a standard of payment. If you pay someone well, he will act very well. It is like a musician who has been paid very well to perform. These are the things that matters. We need to be very careful in our standard of payment. Ghana is not big as Nigeria and their sales are larger than us but Ghana has better talents than Nigeria”, he stated.
Some Ghanaian actors and actresses have openly stated that the acting business in Ghana does not pay often blaming this on unsolved challenges such as lack of finance and producers in the industry who do not pay after a movie is produced.
