Accra, July 12, GNA - Mr Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Minister of Tourism and Modernization of the Capital City, on Monday launched a booklet that tells the story of Emancipation and provides more insight into the de-humanising slave trade and its effects.

The compilation and publication of the booklet by the Ministry is in furtherance of its commitment to ensure that the subject of Emancipation is understood to engender participation in all events marking it.

It is to be sold at a subsidized price of 20 thousand cedis. Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey said a major boost to this year's celebration would be the presence of an international cultural troupe to dramatise the story of slavery and emancipation on August 6, at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Accra.

The Minister said Emancipation Day celebration was an important historical event, whose economic and political outgrowth would be tremendous.

He said its celebration fitted into the four-year strategic action plan of the Ministry that sought to make Ghana the "gateway to the Homeland" and make the tourism sector a major foreign exchange earner. It would attract one million tourists and generate 1.5 billion dollars for the economy by the year 2007.

"As a build up to 2007, Emancipation Day celebration is being expanded and enriched with activities that will be both educative and exciting."

It would also involve a maiden event of a tour of slave sites in the North, which is a major main source of slaves from Ghana. Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey invited all Ghanaians to support and join Emancipation Day celebrations and help consolidate Ghana's place in the history of the slave trade, civil rights movement and Pan-Africanism.