Panafest Gets Off To A Slow Start

The highly anticipated foreign participation in "Panafest 2001" is running into problems as most of such participants have still not arrived in the country due to delayed flight schedules from their various destinations, particularly the United States.

As a result, the official opening of the ' Efua Sutherland Children's Camp' expected to attract many youth groups from the US and across the Diaspora, scheduled for Friday as the curtain-raiser for activities of the festival, has had to be rescheduled for next Monday. These came to light when the Ghana News Agency visited the Centre for National Culture (CNC) at Cape Coast where a Trade Exposition was to be opened on Friday, as part of the festival.

At the CNC, the time for the opening of the Exposition had to be re-scheduled from 12 noon to 1 PM. In spite of the importance of the festival, there was virtually no sight of the about 5,000 participants who were expected to attend the 10-day event. The Executive Secretary of the Panafest Foundation, Kohain Halevi, however, gave the assurance that all activities in connection with the festival will go ahead as scheduled.