The presidential hopeful for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has pledged to grant additional Eid holidays to Muslims in Ghana if he secures victory in the 2024 elections following Francis Xavier Sosu’s proposal
Expressing concern over the challenges Muslims face in fully enjoying their holidays due to moon sighting issues, Mahama aims to address this by amending the country’s Public Holidays Act.
In a move to address this concern, Member of Parliament for Madina, Francis-Xavier Sosu, introduced a private members bill on December 14.
The bill proposes the addition of two Islamic public holidays, namely Tashreeq (day after Eid-al-Adha) and Shaqq (day before Eid-al-Fitr). Submitted to the Clerk of Parliament on November 29, 2023, the bill is currently undergoing the necessary processing.
The call for additional holidays for Eid celebrations echoes a plea from Muslim leaders on October 8, urging the government to designate official holidays for Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Adha.
The Conference of Regional Imams of Ghana highlighted the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the observance of Ramadan holiday on either the 29th or 30th day.
John Dramani Mahama reiterated his commitment to accommodating these concerns during the 63rd Annual National Conference of the Ghana Muslim Mission in Kumasi on December 29.
It is our intention to resolve the situation where some of our Muslim brothers and sisters do not enjoy the public holiday at the end of Ramadan fast due to the 29 or 30-day rule based on sighting the moon. Therefore, we will add a holiday to the celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr. If Insha-Allah we are voted into office, we will add an additional holiday to the Eid-ul-Fitr celebration. And we are going to do this by reconfiguring the Public Holiday Act so that Ghana maintains the same number of public holidays per year so that we do not affect productivity, he opined.
Emphasizing a modification of the Public Holidays Act to benefit Muslims, Mahama assured that such changes would be implemented without adversely affecting productivity.
