George Padmore Library to charge tourists

The George Padmore Research Library will soon start charging tourists who visit and patronise the facility.

Mr Simon Teye, Director at the Library, told the Ghana News Agency that Management had had discussions with the Executive Director of Ghana Library Authority on the necessary steps to raise some revenue.

“Originally, we are not mandated to charge for services rendered to tourists, who visit the facility unlike the Du Bois Memorial Center and Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park,” but

“ashes of the late Pan-Africanist have been interred at the facility and this is attracting tourists so we need something maintain the place…”

“We will charge and will do so within the law,” he added.

Mr Teye said the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted negatively on the number of people who visited the facility for both tourism and research purposes in 2020 and mildly in 2021.

He explained that in 2021, the facility recorded 5,600 visits to the Library compared to to 15,000 in 2017 and 2018.

Out of the number, close to 70 tourists, all foreign nationals, some being Africans from the diaspora, visited the facility in 2021.

The George Padmore Research Library is a monument established by Ghana’s First President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah,in his honour on June 30, 1961 and located at Ring Way, Osu in Accra.

The Pan-Africanist, who was named after the facility, was born on June 28, 1903, in Trinidad in the Caribbean.

He was a journalist and an author.

From 1945, Kwame Nkrumah developed close relations with Mr Padmore during the Organisation of the fifth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester, United Kingdom on October 1945.

Upon his arrival in Ghana in 1957, he (Kwame Nkrumah) set up an office, which focused on African Liberation.

It was after the death of Mr Padmore in 1959 that Dr Nkrumah built the George Padmore Research Library of African Affairs as a monument in his honour.

He authored over 50 books, including the popular “Pan-Africanism or Communism.”

Source: GNA