Farmers Day As Public Holiday Must Be Abolish – NPP

The communication director of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Lower West Akyem Constituency of the Eastern Region, Mr. Addo Kwasi Annor has advocated for the abolishment of the first Friday of December as a public holiday for Farmers Day.

Introduced by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, National Farmers’ Day was organized as a day’s activity for the nation to honor its hard-working farmers, with certificates and prizes, who excelled in their contributions to improve the agricultural sector.

In 1988, the first Friday of every December was designated by the government as Farmers’ Day and is celebrated as a statutory Public Holiday.

Except Farmers’ Day which is always on a Friday, any other holiday which date fall at the weekend is postponed to the following Monday tends to be declared a holiday.

But in an interview with Kofi Atakora, mybrytfmonline.com reporter, Mr. Addo Annor noted that the farmers themselves do not enjoy the statutory Public Holiday, rather enjoyed by other workers in Ghana who are not farmers.

The communications director, who doubles as West Akyem Municipal NADMO director advocated that the farmers day holiday must be enjoyed by farmers and officials of Ministry of Food and Agriculture as well as state officials to be assigned for special duties only, advocating that the rest government workers must go to work to save money lost through public holiday.

Mr. Addo Annor noted that Teachers day is not a public holiday for all Teachers and public sector workers but awardees and others assigned for official duties only and hailed that policy and advocated the same process for farmers’ day.

Ghana is documented to lose close to 7 billion cedis worth of work productivity to public holiday and with an economy said to be below the upper-middle-income bracket there remain concerns over whether or not the nation should revise its decision on the sheer attention drawn to public holidays.

Currently, Ghanaians enjoy thirteen working days off as public holidays which includes; January 1 New Year,

January 7 Constitution Day,

March 6 Independence Day,

Good Friday Good Friday,

Easter Monday,

May 1 May Day,

Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Fitr,

August 4, Founder’s Day,

September 21, Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day,

First Friday in December Farmer’s Day,

December 25, Christmas Day

December 26, Boxing Day