Ghana marks International Museum Day

Ghana on Tuesday joined the international community to mark this year’s International Museum Day to evaluate museums and monuments and to explore other ways of improving their current state.

This was marked on the theme “Museums as Cultural Hubs: The Future of Tradition” and was aimed at providing support for the restitution of museum collections to the African continent this year and the years to come.

Mrs Barbara Oteng Gyasi, Minister for Tourism, Art and Culture said marking the day was an opportunity to evaluate museums in Ghana, especially the national Museum and the science Museum.

She said past governments relegated the need to improve the museums to the background, a situation she said the current administration was devoting funds to ensure their improvement as they constituted a part of the country’s cultural heritage.

“Currently the government is also committed to developing further museums to display what we have in Ghana because it plays an important part in our tourism industry”, she said.

“When people come to Ghana, they want to see what is different and what Ghana has to offer and is through these museums that we can display what our history has been and where we are going”, she added.

She added that government was setting up a cocoa museum in the eastern region and looking forward to setting up a gold museum in the western region since the two were important industries that shaped the economy of Ghana and had lots to offer.

Mrs Gyasi further stated that the Ministry intended to employ technology as a marketing tool to showcase the country’s numerous artworks and to promote tourism.

“We intend to take advantage of technology, because we have the museums on ground already, but we can develop and display it on social media so that another person in a different country will be able to view it, especially with our forts and castles”, she stated.

While calling on corporate entities to support the government to rehabilitate museums and monuments that were in poor state, Mrs Gyasi also encouraged Ghanaians to patronise domestic tourism to help the country to promote its tourist sites to help boost the economy.

Mr Kingsley Ofosu Ntiamoah, the Executive Director of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) said cultural and natural heritage were imperative in peacemaking and ensuring sustainable development in the world.

He said managers of museums across the continent therefore unanimously agreed that all museum collections collected in the colonial era be returned.

“It is with this in mind that the GMMB is marking the day, to assess the status of our museums and the way forward, to prepare ourselves as the natural institution to receive all restituted mater cultural objects”, he said.

Mr Ivor Agyeman-Duah, a member of the GMMB who chaired the occasion said it was time stakeholders identified reasons that were hindering the institution from acquiring new artworks and what strategies could be employed to address the situation.