July 1 reinstated as public holiday as Parliament passes public holidays amendment bill
Parliament has passed the Public Holidays and Commemorative Days (Amendment) Bill, 2025, amending Act 601 to provide for Shaqq Day and July 1, as statutory public holidays.
It also 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 deletes August 4 as Founders' Day and reinstates September 21 as Founder's Day.
The bill, which was passed under a certificate of urgency, was presented to the House and read the first time by the Minister of the Interior, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, last Tuesday.
This was after the Committee on Defence and Interior, and the leadership of the Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs, considered it to be urgent.
Moving the motion adopted by the committee’s report, the 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 holidays, had restructured the holidays to take away those that were controversial and those “we are unanimous and rally around”.
He said the government would keep January 1 as New Year Day, January 7 as Constitutional Day, March 6 as Independence Day, March or April as Good Friday for Christians, March or April as Easter Monday for Christians, May 1 as Labour Day and July 1 as Republic Day.
He said the government believed that the commemorative day was very significant in the life of Ghana and “therefore we are bringing it back as a full holiday”.
Prioritise urgent promises
The Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, said the Minority did not trivialise Ghana's heritage or the importance of inclusive celebrations.
He, however, said Ghanaians must question the government's sense of priority in acceding a certificate of urgency to a bill about public holidays.
With Ghana facing serious socio-economic challenges and unfulfilled reform promises, he said the push to fast-track a holiday amendment was “frankly perplexing”.
