The Member of Parliament for Madina Constituency, Francis-Xavier Sosu, has presented two draft bills to Parliament seeking to amend the Public Holidays Act 2001, Act 601.
The object of the Private Member’s Bills is to add two Islamic Holidays to the number of public holidays the country observes and provide the effective use of public holidays to ensure productivity.
In an explanatory note accompanying the draft bills which have since been submitted to the Clerk of Parliament, the two new Islamic holidays Mr Sosu is proposing are Tashreeq and Shaqq.
If passed, Tashreeq would be observed a day after the Eid-Ul- Adha and Shaqq to be observed a day before Eid-Ul-Fitr.
The draft bill also wants power of the President to declare additional public holiday removed, grant authority to the President to merge public holidays, postpone celebration of public holidays on productive days to Friday, remove criminal sanctions for non-observance of public holidays, and provide for related matters.
“When passed public holidays that fall on days between Tuesday and Thursday shall be observed on Fridays. A substitute public holiday is an ordinary day that is treated like a public holiday instead of an actual public holiday. The basis for this proposal stems from the fact that productivity may be at its peak in the middle of the working week, say on a Tuesday or Wednesday,” the note explained.
Currently, by practice, pubic holidays that fall on weekends are not marked as such as they are postponed to the next Monday affecting productivity in the process.
“By this amendment such practice would be done away with. Also, the proposal seeks to abolish the regime of criminalising conducts associated with public holidays by a repeal of the Offences and penalties provisions under section 5 of Act 601,” the note further clarified.
On the two Islamic holidays proposed, the Madina lawmaker said Muslims deserve equal opportunity in observing their festivals.
“Being the 2nd dominant religion in Ghana, Ghanaian Muslims must have equal opportunities when it comes to celebration of religious festivals. After 40 days of mandatory religious obligation of fasting, practitioners of Islamic Religion deserve an additional day for rest and to prepare for full activities.
“The religious significance of these holidays is to afford Muslims the opportunity to fully manifest and observe their faith, and offer gratitude to Allah for all that He has done, granted them, and continues to do; as well as for them to fully place and restore their trust in Allah and His abundant care, grace and wisdom,” Mr Sosu argued.
The above position he said is supported by Article 17(1) of the 1992 Constitution which provides that all persons are equal before the law” and that a person shall not be discriminated against on grounds of gender, race, colour, ethnic origin, religion, creed or social or economic status and Article 2 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
In his view under the current holidays dispensation, Francis-Xavier Sosu said “it is unfair, discriminatory, and does not allow for the full manifestation of the Islamic faith by Muslims as enshrined and guaranteed by the 1992 Constitution and other international laws and treaties”.
Currently it is only the Christian sect that have two days each as holidays for its festivals; Christmas and Easter where Christmas is observed on December 25, Boxing Day on December 26, and Good Friday and Easter Monday for the Easter festivities.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
