A Yuletide After Elections

The political euphoria that engulfed the country a few weeks ago has eventually subsided, with Ghanaians feverishly preparing for this year’s yuletide.

The year is only a few days shy of ending and everyone, everywhere, is making frantic efforts to celebrate this year’s Christmas in grand style.

Homes, offices and shops in Ghana are being adorned with flowers, lights and Christmas trees and any décor associated with the yuletide to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ.

It is the season of love, generosity, kindness, happiness and a season when everyone comes together in the celebration.

The festive season, among other things, is characterized by people going to church for prayers, and to remember the birth of Jesus Christ.

Others celebrate the season by cooking special dishes and enjoying with their family and close friends. They celebrate it with great pomp and gaiety.

People also post greeting cards to their friends and family during the season which lasts for 12 days, from December 25.

The festive mood and friendly people also transform the festival of giving gifts into a memorable one with unhindered fun and gratification.

The Business Side Of Christmas

Most parts of Accra, especially the central business district where most of the items for Christmas are purchased, are flooded with vehicles and shoppers from all walks of life.

Some go to the business district to buy or to at least window shop.

Christmas trees, decorating accessories, gifts, clothes, shoes and ladies bags dominate the items that are sold during the season.

Traders at the business centre who sell regular goods have specifically added Christmas goods to their stock for the season.

This, they say, fetches more profit during the season than selling other commodities. Traders use the seasonal goods to augment their income stream. For instance, Christmas trees are never sold on regular days, but during Christmas, they suddenly become a choice product which sells between GH¢13 and GH¢60.

Shops have been stocked and filled to meet the expected demand that usually comes with the celebration of the yuletide.

Meanwhile, hawkers have also poured onto the streets of the business center with their wares in hand, calling out to shoppers.

Visits to some shops around town showed traders were overwhelmed by the turnout of Christmas shoppers.

Several thousands of shoppers keep swarming shops at Accra Central on a daily basis as the Christmas season draws closer.

Shop owners, who were seen busily attending to shoppers, said they had underestimated trading activities this season, especially following the recent presidential and parliamentary elections.

At the Okaishie market, George Yeboah, a textile shop owner who pointed to the jammed streets and car park says, “I was not expecting many people to come out to shop this December considering the political atmosphere but more and more people keep coming as the days go by.”

He adds, “Though my shop opens at 8am and closes at 5pm, buyers have in the past three days come to queue over here.”

Another shop keeper in the same area, who gave her name as Aunty Maud, says the prices of some goods have shot up while others have been stable.

She, however, notes her items are made in the USA and therefore their prices will not correlate with the price of locally manufactured items. The prices of her wares were a bit higher than the local ones because of the import duties she paid on them.

“Our biscuits, toffees, drinks, oil and rice are from America so these are priced differently. We used to sell one kilogramme box of biscuits for GH¢32 but now it has increased to GH¢35,” she says.

“A five-litre bottle of oil which was sold for GH¢30 is now GH¢35,” Maud adds.

At the Pedestrian Shopping Mall located close to the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra, traders claim trading activities are slow.

Mawusi Setorfe, a jewelry seller, comments that “the people who come around are only window shopping. They are not buying. They only come to see our displayed goods and then they leave.”

She nonetheless expects to make profit during the final days of the year.

“I have stocked my shop and I estimate that my overall sales by the end of the year will shoot up compared to last year’s sales.”

Workers at the SHEPAJ Gift shop located at Nima Roundabout were seen busily wrapping hampers for sale.

The shop attendant, Harriett Okyere, says the hampers which contain bottles of drinks and wine, box of biscuits and packets of toffees are sold between GH¢30 to GH¢1000.

“The GH¢1000 hamper comes with an ice chest, several bottles of drinks and wine, biscuits, toffees and other items,” she says.

She also projects good sales during the season but cannot tell how many of the hampers will be sold by the end of the celebration.

“I can’t tell how many we will sell for Christmas but by the grace of God we hope to sell many,” she notes.

Nasiru Andaratu, sales executive at Amalina Enterprise, wholesale dealers in clothing for pregnant women and babies, located at Accra Central, says she cannot keep count of the number of items she sells a day.

“We don’t have the time to count the money at the close of the day and so I cannot tell you how many pieces of clothing I sell a day,” she says.

She says business has been good in the past few days; “If not, you would see a lot of items here but because people are buying the items are moving.”

Kofi Dzikpor, owner of Paddy Farms, says sales of poultry products have not picked up yet compared to last year when sales were very encouraging around this time.

Last year, when the paper visited him at his farm at La Wireless, a suburb of Accra, Dzikpor complained bitterly about poor sales, attributing it to the high importation of frozen chicken into the country.

He observes that although people complain about the high prizes of the locally bred fowls and turkeys for the festive season, they are buying.

He explains that the feed they give to the animals have stabilized after the price shot up.

“Oh this year it is a little better than last year because the price of the yellow maize which I use to prepare their feed has stabilized,” he says.

“For the price, at least GH¢35 is okay for the fowls but the turkey, I dress for the departmental stores and that goes for GH¢20 for a kilo. But a fully dressed turkey goes for GH¢150 and also GH¢170 for the bigger ones,” he says.

He attributes the poor sales to the relaxed attitude of Ghanaians towards such celebrations.

“People prefer to wait till the last two days before they come to buy,” he says.

Dzikpor is hopeful his poultry market will pick up at the last minutes of the Christmas celebrations.

“We hope people will buy earlier than last year where people waited till last minute before they came to buy the poultry,” he says.

Hawkers’ Field Day

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has also announced plans to halt its protracted battle with hawkers to pave way for them to also make some sales during the festive season.

The AMA has suspended all decongestion exercises in the Central Business District (CBD).

The assembly says it will begin full operation within the metropolis early next year after the Christmas and New Year festivities.

Over the years, AMA has embarked on a series of exercises to rid the streets of illegal structures, traders and hawkers, but the traders always outwit the assembly.

Last year, the AMA clashed with hawkers who refused to vacate pavements and unauthorized places.

However, the Public Relations Officer of AMA, Numo Blafo, in an interview with the paper, stressed that the AMA would begin full operations early next year.

He did not give any reasons why AMA has delayed in ridding the streets of hawkers.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri