Government urged to make Founders’ Day celebration more meaningful

Holiday celebrants have called on government to make the Founders’ Day celebration more development-oriented by putting up one special project in the regions or birth places of each of the founding fathers of the nation.

They suggested that instead of institutionalizing Founders’ Day as a holiday, government could reverse it and calculate the projected tax remits for that day to fund such projects.

Some of the holiday makers, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Paga and in Bolgatanga, observed that Ghana seemed to have too many holidays that invariably affected tax administration and therefore suggested that Founders Day should be celebrated on the same day with Africa Union Day since the two come in the same spirit.

Mr Yaw Mort, New Patriotic Party (NPP) Regional Secretary for the Upper East said, “the proceeds could be used to revamp tourist attractions at the birth places of these ingenious sons of this our dear nation which could in tend serve as income for the people in the locality”.

He further suggested that if government insisted on a holiday, it could be half-day where workers could close at noon having made some useful man hours as far as labour was concerned.

Mr Henry Adivila, Northern Sector Medical representative of the HILLS Pharmaceuticals, expressed dissatisfaction at the low publicity given the occasion and said, “Until Wednesday I did not know today would be a holiday”.

Mr Adivila questioned how government arrived at Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday as Founders Day and said in Ghanaian politics the people, who could most appropriately be described as Founders of the nation, were the Big Six which Dr Nkrumah was part. “So what is the implication if you select one out of the six and claim he is the founder” he queried.

In national events like these, Mr Adivila noted, it was only proper that government initiated a national forum to arrive at what should constitute founders’ day, and said the action of government could anger the families and kinsmen of the other members of the Big Six.

He counseled government to “endorse the Big Six as initial Founders of this our great nation and initiate the implementation of attractive tourist projects in their home regions to make them have national look”.

He argued that if the birthday of any of the Big Six would be maintained as Founders’ Day, then it should be rotational so that the other members would also have their turns.

Mrs Ayishetu Anaba, a retired teacher, praised the institution of Founders’ Day celebrations but observed that too much attention was being given to Dr Nkrumah as founder of the nation Ghana.

She noted that even though there were two schools of thinkers on the independence of Ghana, it would not be fair to project some at the expense of others and said their ideologies put together gave Ghana her independence.

That Mrs Anaba said, “It will also motivate younger generations to vie to achieve bigger laurels for mother Ghana”.