Accra July 12, GNA - Mr Kojo Yankah, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the PANAFEST Foundation, on Tuesday urged Ghanaians to take the celebration of PANAFEST seriously as it had great development potentials for the country.

He said: "PANAFEST has achieved instant international acceptance because it was logical for a country that has been the beacon of the black liberation and has remnants of colonialism in the forts and castles dotted on its coast to host such a grand idea."

Mr Yankah was speaking at a press conference on the preparations so far made towards PANAFEST and Emancipation Day 2005, which would come off on July 21 to 31 at Cape Coast and with the Emancipation Day falling on August 1, this year at Assin Manso.

PANAFEST was an opportunity to reunite the one African family torn apart by circumstances of history, culture and negative images about one another.

Mr Yankah mentioned Ghana's First President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah; Marcus Garvey; George Padmore and W E B Du Bios as Pan-Africanists, who had already made Ghana as the home of Pan-Africanism, adding that Ghanaians should continue to cherish and uphold the celebration with seriousness.

"I believe it is not late in the day for Ghana to show greater commitment to an idea which is giving the country so much leverage in the Pan-Africanist world.

"Uniting and Preserving the African Family in the Fight against HIV/AIDS" is the chosen theme for the celebration of PANAFEST this year and Mr Yankah explained that HIV/AIDS was a developmental issue that needed to be addressed.

He said the PANAFEST Foundation, responsible for the organization of PANAFEST, is a non-partisan and non-political organization made up of volunteers committed to Pan-Africanism and the re-emergence of the African civilization.

The benefits of PANAFEST to the local community in Cape-Coast, Elmina and Ghana as a whole are enormous, Mr Yankah said. Mr Ferdinand Ayim, Special Assistant to the Minister of Tourism and Modernization of the Capital City, said the Ministry was committed to ensure that celebration of Emancipation and PANAFEST this year was a success.

This year Emancipation Day celebration has a sub-theme: "Honouring Our African Heroes" which he said would be used to honour George Ekem Ferguson, a Ghanaian Colonial Agent instrumental in convincing local chiefs to sign treaties of friendship with the British.