2011 Panafest Launched

Ghana's Deputy Tourism Minister

A COLOURFUL ceremony was on Wednesday held in Elmina in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) Municipality of the Central Region to officially launch the 2011 Pan-African Historical Theatre Festival (PANAFEST) scheduled to take off from July 22 to July 31 this year.

This year, the event, under the theme ‘Re-uniting the African Family, Challenges and Prospects’, is aimed at attracting thousands of expatriates from across the globe to partake in the historical festival.

PANAFEST also aims at providing a forum to promote unity between Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora, encourage regular reviews of African people in the world, and define the contributions to world civilization as well as mobilize consensus for the formulation and implementation of potential alternative options for national development

Addressing the ceremony, the Chairman of the PANAFEST Foundation, Dr. Bin Abdullah, hinted that though PANAFEST and Emancipation Day celebrations were memorable days that reminded Africans about the hell their forefathers passed through, they were faced with many challenges which were gradually collapsing the occasion.

According to him, prices of air line tickets had risen so high that foreigners had declined to partake in the PANAFEST festival since they could no longer buy tickets alone for $2,400 to $2,800, before thinking of where they would sleep and the food they would eat.

Dr. Abdullah disclosed that the government of Trinidad and Tobago had promised to send a delegation of 200 to participate in the celebration of PANAFEST, but due to the high cost of air tickets, the country’s government had reduced the number.

The Deputy Minister of Tourism, James Agyenim Boateng, who doubled as the guest speaker for the launch, assured the PANAFEST committee of government’s commitment to support the celebration to make it a memorable one.

He noted that PANAFEST and Emancipation Day were some of the major occasions that helped boost the nation’s economy since they brought into the country investors from different parts of the world.

From Desmond K. Dapaah, Elmina