Gaborone — Shock Botswana Musicians Union (BOMU) award winners in the Best Album and Best Traditional Music category, Ramotswa group Barwakgodumo have attributed their fame to their own investment strategy - they voted for themselves.

The group owner Orometswe Mautwanyane says they invested a lot of money towards voting for their album, a relatively unknown quantity, hardly visible on local music shelves as well.

However, he declined to say how much they put aside for the votes, saying it is the group's secret.

Mmegi Showbiz interviewed Mautwanyane on Tuesday after receiving certificates and engraved trophies, as well as P2,000 cash for the award-winning album at the Thapong Arts Centre.

The voting process has been criticised for putting emphasis on just votes, without restricting the votes to one subscriber one vote. However Barwakgodumo owner, also the producer, arranger, and composer of the group's songs was defiant:

"It doesn't matter. We invested money into voting. Ga se mathata, we don't care. People should have voted for themselves, like we did. This one is a matter of votes," Mautwanyane told Showbiz when asked to explain why such unknown quantity have defied the odds.

The Barwakgodumo owner, whose group has 15 members, admitted that since the album was released this year, it has struggled to get onto the shelves of most shops, but blamed a South African company which owns the marketing and distribution rights, for the unavailability of the album on the market.

They are yet to reap the fruits of the album. Mautwanyane says he has not yet received the first royalties from the South African company charged with marketing and distribution.

The company, Cool Spot, markets and distributes the Barwakgodumu album in South Africa and other SADC companies, according to Mautwanyane, who has vowed that he will adopt a different marketing strategy for the next Barwakgodumo project.

Mautwanyane also admitted that in terms of sales, the album is not doing well especially locally, further raising doubts about the credibility of the voting process in determining the winners of the BOMU music awards.

Not to take away the shine from the Ramotswa Group, they did convince the panel of judges that at least their album has all the trademarks of an award winner, after it made it through to the final nomination stage, where the voters had the final say.

Barwakgodumo stole the show on the controversial award night on October 31 when they became the only group to bag two awards. Nevertheless, there were murmurs of disapproval from the attending revellers, simply because it was expected that such awards would go to the most appealing names. Traditional music especially has become Botswana's trademark music and leading lights such as Culture Spears, Matsieng, Captain Dira, Dikakapa, Gong Master, are selling well even in South Africa.

Other shock winners of the BOMU awards this year have been one Gabo Thotobolo, and Tshepo Lesole, who won in the Best Newcomer, and Best Male categories also decided by sms votes.