Let’s throw away the trivial subjective benefits we derive when the state declares a holiday—I mean, the free time from that annoying boss, a visit to the beach with friend and family and all the things we are able to do with another free day in our lives.
And look into the economic disadvantages of such days to our struggling economy: also, how some of these holidays are really unimportant, because we could celebrate whatever is at stake without calling a day off on all productive activities.
I do not want to deal with the mini warfare our Air Force engages themselves in during our annual Independence Day celebrations, the long hours of parade and the national cost involved—when we could have used that holiday more meaningfully by engage in national cleaning exercises just as the new President of Tanzania recently instituted.
The Founder’s Day and AfricaDday which are both holidays on our national calendar are indisputably worthless; they hurt our economy and sometimes, we ask ourselves the piercing question—what are we really taking a full day to mark?
But those are gone so let’s look at Farmers’ Day, which is also a national holiday in Ghana that falls on the first friday of every December—and ascertain if it’s really worth being declared a national holiday.
Statistics are difficult to come by in Ghana but no one would argue that a country loses a lot with every single holiday declared.
Not long ago, “the United Kingdom was contemplating on cutting down its few bank holidays in a year—because they calculated that, each holiday cost the UK economy £2.3bn and scrapping them would boost annual output by £19bn.”
This is a developed nation still taking charge of holidays; well aware of the economy disservice these holidays fetch their booming economy.
Though we do not have accurate statistics on how much Ghana loses per holiday, it is reasonable to say, we are losing a lot of money and productive time celebrating mostly NOTHING. What we set to celebrate can still be done without necessary declaring a national holiday.
The Farmers Day celebration is to mark and celebrate the contribution of Ghanaian farmers to our struggling economy, the same economy we halt numerous times a year with numerous national holidays.
Ghana may be receiving significant national contributions from farmers but they are not the only people who occupy the wheel of Ghana’s economic and human progress.
Imagine what would happen if others like doctors, musicians, students, the unemployed and even the politicians become irrational—and demands for a day to be declared a holiday to celebrate their respective contributions and absence of contributions.
This may sound outrageous but this is a country where until 2001, June 4, a day of military revolution—which some hate for it to be called a coup d’tate because of certain technicalities, was an annual national holiday.
We have Labour Day which falls on May 1 of ever year as a holiday—why do we need another day for just farmers, dubbed Farmers Day? Are farmers not workers? Couldn’t we award the national best farmer on this day? Why do we need a whole day dedicated to awarding and ‘celebrating’ farmers?
Roughly, Ghana has 13 public holidays—the UK has just 7, the USA has 10 and most countries have significantly less compared to us. And we do not seem to see anything wrong with this—soon, we will have ‘End of Dumsor’ holiday.
I perfectly appreciate and understand the contribution of farmers to Ghana’s economy but I also sincerely believe we can flawlessly celebrate their contributions without necessary declaring a national holiday.
0 Comments