‘Jubilee House’ Goes for Constitutional Backing

Plans are underway to make constitutional, the name, ‘Jubilee House’ as the official seat of the government of Ghana, Communications Director at the Presidency, Eugene Arhin, has revealed.

According to him, this step would make it extremely difficult for subsequent governments to change the name of the seat of government to any other name aside its original one.

Speaking on Accra based Oman FM, the Communications Director said, “there would no longer be back and forth with the renaming of the presidential palace. As much as possible we are going to make sure that that doesn’t happen again in the near future.

“Very soon we would take a legislation to parliament about the name jubilee house…we would take it to parliament, do the legislation and make it an act of parliament…nobody in the near future can stand up and say I’m changing it to something else,” he said.

Mr Arhin continued, “The name that President Kufuor gave to the building after its construction, was Jubilee House…for many many years to come that building―the seat of the presidency would still be called Jubilee House.”

Last Thursday, government renamed the seat of the Presidency, from Flagstaff House to Jubilee House― a move that was received with mixed reactions from the public.

The edifice, built by the Kufuor-led administration in 2017 was named Jubilee House because it coincided with the 50th anniversary of Ghana’s independence.

But President John Atta Mills’ government renamed it Flagstaff House, the original name of the building around the same area which housed the President.

Mr Arhin said the renaming of the current edifice housing the presidency is constitutional because there is no record anywhere indicating the change of name by the erstwhile Mills government.

“There is no record anywhere that Jubilee House was renamed Flagstaff House. So, the president as a result of Article 58 of the constitution and the power vested in him by that article has named the Flagstaff House as Jubilee House,” he said.

State of the Jubilee House

According to Mr Arhin, the building was in a deplorable state on resumption of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

“The whole place was run down and not fit for purpose. You wonder how someone stayed there for over four years and at the end of the day, look at the state in which they left the building,” he said.

But the communications director noted that renovations had been done to ensure that the building is fit to be described as a seat of government.

“Everything is functioning properly…it was our father that built it so, whatever be the case, we are the ones to make sure that we bring dignity to that particular building. If you enter jubilee house right now, you would realise that indeed you have entered a presidential office that can meet any standard in the world,” he indicated.

By: Grace Ablewor Sogbey/ [email protected]