Ghana don’t need additional public holiday – Ghanaians caution President
The President, Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo, has proposed the designation of August 4 as the Founders Day and September 21 as Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day.
In line with that, he will push for legalization of the two dates as public holidays.
Rite FM, a Somanya based station for Agric and Social Development has interviewed some Ghanaians on the street in respect of the President’s announcement.
While some considered the public holidays as a cost on the state, others were of the view that, they are occasions for thriving small scale businesses.
“Even though market booms during holidays, I think as a nation we celebrate too much holidays. We lost money by way of spending much for observing the days.”
“I think is very important to honor them too in that manner because they have also contributed to our freedom we enjoy as a nation.”
The general view of the people our news team spoke to revealed however, that, additional holidays would not be in a good taste for the country since productivity is affected downward and cost increases.
A statement signed by the Director of Communication at the Flagstaff House, Mr. Eugene Arhin, and issued in Accra said the President had issued an Executive Instrument (EI) to commemorate this year’s celebration of the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day on September21 as a public holiday.
The statement said the most appropriate way to honor them is to commemorate the day on which the two most significant events in Ghana’s colonial political history that led us to independence occurred -4th August. ”On that day in 1897,the Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS)was formed in Cape Coast .The society did a great a job to mobilized the people to ward off the greedy hands of the British imperialism to ensure that control of Ghana lands remained Ghanaian hands. It represented the first monumental step towards making modern Ghana, enabling us to avoid the quagmire of land inheritance that our brothers and sisters in southern and eastern Africa continue to suffer from the seizures of their lands by white minorities”the statement said.
It continues to said that, I deliberate act in the continuum of Ghanaian history, exactly 50 years later, on August 4, 1947, at Salt pond, the great nationalist of the time gathered to inaugurate the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), the first truly nationalist party of the Gold Coast, to demand the independence of our nation from British rule at a gathering which included paramount chiefs, clergymen, politicians among other stakeholders.
Source: Prince Paul Amuzu/ritefmonline.org
