Musicians Association of Malawi (Mam) President Chimwemwe Mhango has said the Gospel Music Awards (GMA) organisers had no money and that they wanted to raise money out of musicians.
This follows the failure by GMA to honour the winning musicians’ prizes.
“The Gospel Awards were pathetic. I have followed up everything and my opinion is that GMA Chairperson Kondwani Magela had no money and wanted to raise money out of musicians but the planning was poor and he ended up losing,” said Mhango as quoted in the press.
Mhango said Magela simply needed to apologise to the musicians and the country rather than making lame excuses.
“I have advised the gospel musicians to come up with a decision otherwise if he remains quiet and as well as unavailable we will surely take a legal action against him,” said Mhango.
Rev Mhango: Pathetic
In his letter written recently titled GMA explanation of non-payment of cash prizes to award winners and sourced by The Daily Times, Magela failed to explain clearly as to why they failed to pay the winners having promised that they had the budget for payment.
Magela said that the winners just want to gain public sympathy and be seen as victims as they had promised the organisers that the event would reap millions at the gate.
“These artists should not run away from the fact they claimed that the event would produce millions of kwachas from sms revenue and gate collection revenue stream would go to cash prizes,” he said.
But this is a contradiction of what Magela said when he claimed that they had prizes in place before the event.
Mhango also said that Magela and team assured the musicians and the nation during the launch at Grace Bandawe in Blantyre that they had the money for the cash prizes.
He said as Mam, they would now be reviewing awards and said that they would be sitting down for discussions with the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Culture for solutions so that those who fail in their duties should be fined or be banned from hosting events.
