The Parliament of Ghana has passed the Public Holidays and Commemorative Days (Amendment) Bill, 2025.
The object of the bill is to amend the Public Holidays and Commemorative Days Act, 2001 (Act 601) to provide for Shaqq Day and July 1st as statutory public holidays.
It provides an additional holiday, for the Muslim community as Shaqq Day, which would be observed a day after the Eid-ul Fitr celebration.
The bill also removes August 4th as Founders’ Day and reinstates September 21st as Founder’s Day.
The bill, which was passed under a certificate of urgency, was presented to the House and read for the first time by the Minister of the Interior, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka on June 24th, 2025.
Justification for bill
Moving the motion to adopt the committee’s report, Mr Muntaka said the government had looked at the number of holidays and in line with some of the promises it made with regards to the holidays had restructured the holidays to take away those that were controversial and those “we are unanimous and rallied around”.
He said the government believed that the July 1st commemorative day was a very significant day in the life of Ghana and “therefore we are bringing it back as a full holiday”.
“We believe that as a country we are united around July 1,” he said, telling the House that August 4 was being taken out as Founders’ Day.
“Because we believe that as a country we are not unanimous around it and it served as a divisive day for us as Ghanaians,” he said.
All midweek holidays moved to Friday – See full holiday calendar changes
The law calls for moving all midweek holidays that fall on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays to Fridays.
The purpose of this adjustment is to extend weekends and possibly increase productivity.
With some holidays happening in the middle of the week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, he said such holidays caused workers to take such holidays for granted.
“This lowers productivity and what we intend to do with this amendment is simply to say that if a holiday falls in the middle of the week, that is Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it should be observed on a Friday.
“If it falls on Saturday and Sunday, it should be observed on Monday so that there will be some certainty and give us longevity in the weekend,” he said.
He added: “That will enhance our tourism industry and the creative act,” he said, assuring such pushing some holidays towards the weekend would “even enhance our economic activity”.
“We did not find that financially it is going to affect our country in any way,” he said.
