Government still doesn’t understand the creative arts sector

Veteran filmmaker and respected creative arts advocate, Socrate Safo, has raised concern over how creatives are managed in Ghana’s public sector, arguing they remain misunderstood by bureaucratic systems.

In comments shared during an interview with GhanaWeb on X, Safo praised the government for appointing creative arts personalities to positions, noting that the sector demands a level of treatment which non-creative art personalities may not be used to.

“We are a different species altogether. So, one, thank God that in this government, we’ve seen creatives being put in certain positions, and I think they score ‘high marks’ over there because for the creative industry, if you put somebody to manage it and the person is not part of us, either we will frustrate the person or the person will frustrate us,” he said.

Creatives in government are functioning, they’re just not communicating – Socrate Safo

Safo, who once served as Director of Creative Arts at the National Commission on Culture, stressed that bureaucratic delays kill momentum and stall creativity.

“… because we have the way we approach our things. Look, a creative person gets an idea; all he needs is a microphone. Whether the conditions are right or not. Because when that creative energy goes out of him, it will take centuries for it to come back, if it will ever come back. In the same way, when we want to do something, we don’t want bureaucracy,” he said.

He cautioned the government against applying the same models used to judge other sectors to the creative arts sector.

“So, you must know how you manage us. But as we speak now, the public sector still doesn’t understand us. And it has to have people who also understand us. So, that is the biggest, biggest challenge that we will face, and that our brothers faced until we all come together and insisted on that ‘Look, don’t use the same marking scheme that you used to mark the technical class.’ Don’t use the same thing for us,” he said.

Listen to the full interview below:

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Also catch the latest episode of Talkertainment with Ghana’s most-sought-after MC/Hypeman, Kojo Manuel, below: