Parliament has passed the Public Holidays and Commemorative Days (Amendment) Bill, 2025, introducing significant changes to the country’s statutory public holidays.
The object of the bill is to amend the Public Holidays and Commemorative Days Act, 2001 (Act 601) to provide for Shaqq Day and July 1 as statutory public holidays.
It also provides additional holiday for the Muslim community as Shaqq Day, which would be observed a day after the Eid-ul Fitr celebration.
The bill also deletes August 4 as Founders’ Day and reinstates September 21 as Founder’s Day.
The bill, which was passed under a certificate of urgency, was presented to the House and read for the first time by the Minister of Interior, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka on June 24, 2025.
That was after the Committee on Defence on Interior and the leadership of the Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs considered it to be of urgent nature.
Justification for bill
Moving the motion to adopt the committee’s report, the Mr Muntaka said the government had looked at the number of holidays and in line with some of the promises it made with regards to the holidays had restructured the holidays to take away those that were controversial and those “we are unanimous and rallied around”.
He said the government would keep January 1 as New Year Day, January 7 as Constitutional Day, March 6 as Independence Day, March or April for Good Friday for Christians, March or April as Easter Monday for Christians, May 1 as Labour Day and July 1 as Republic Day.
He said the government believed that the commemorative day was a very significant day in the life of Ghana and “therefore we are bringing it back as a full holiday”.
“We believe that as a country we are united around July 1,” he said, telling the House August 4 was being taken out as Founders’ Day, which would not be marked on September 21, the birth of Ghana’s First President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
“Because we believe that as a country we are not unanimous around it and it is served as a divisive day for us as Ghanaians,” he said.
He said February 1 would be celebrated as Farmers’ Day, first Friday in December as Farmers’ Day and December 25 as Christmas Day for Christians.
“Then we have December 26 as Boxing Day for our Christian brothers and sisters as well as Eud- ul-Fitre which is a lunar date sometimes which varies for our Muslim community.
“We are introducing the Shaqq Day, which is a day after Eud-ul-Fitre, as an additional day for our Muslim community, and Eid-ul-Adha which is also lunar,” he said.
With holidays becoming 14 in all, the minister said the number was not excessive as “we are still within our neighbors”.
With some holidays happening in the middle of the week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, he said when such holidays caused workers to take such holidays for grnated.
“This lowers productivity and what we intend to do with this amendment is simply to say that if a holiday falls in the middle of the week, that is Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it should be observed on a Friday.
“If it falls on Saturday and Sunday, it should be observed on Monday so that there will be some certainty and gives us longevity in the weekend,” he said.
He added: “That will enhance our tourism industry and the creative act,” he said, assuring such pushing some holidays towards the weekend would “even enhance our economic activity”.
“We did not find that financially it is going to affect our country in any way,” he said.
Prioritise urgent promises
The Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, said the Minority did not trivialise Ghana’s heritage or the importance of inclusive celebrations.
He, however, Ghanaians must question government’s sense of priority in according a certificate of agency to a bill about public holidays.
With Ghana facing serious socio-economic challenges and unfulfilled reform promises, he said the push to fast-track a holiday amendment was “frankly perplexing”.
“It gives the impression that the resetting the calendar as we were told has been taken to a point where the resetting of the economy and governance is merely a symbolism and the government is not in any way determined to rescue us.
He said certificate of urgency was an extraordinary tool intended for political time-sensitive legislation, typically reserved for matters of national security, economic emergency or dire public need.
“We in the Minority find it difficult to accept that tinkering with public holiday meets this threshold.
“By rationing this bill, government implies that declaring new holidays or renaming existing one is as urgent as tackling, say, an epidemic or financial crisis,” he said.
Highlighting a tall list of urgent bills and promises the government made, Mr Afenyo-Markin said the government promising some sweeping changes that would require urgent critical attention.
Yet after six months, he said the changes that the people expected remained unfulfilled.
Source: Graphic Online