“The subject of restitutions must go along with the matter of reparations. No amount of money can restore the damage caused by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and its consequences, which have spanned many centuries.
“But nevertheless, it is now time to revive and intensify the discussion for reparations for Africans. Indeed, the time is long overdue. If reparations can rightfully be paid to victims of the holocaust, so can reparation be paid to victims of the slave trade” President Akufo-Addo said.
“The restitution, return, reparation and repatriation of African stolen and looted cultural properties under pre-colonial and colonial circumstances have to be issues of major concern to all Africans.
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“These concerns have in recent times dominated public discourse on the continent. Governments, civil society groups, traditional authorities, scholars, and researchers have called for the return of African cultural properties that were illegally and shamelessly transported from the continent” President Akufo-Addo added.
The President further indicated that he supports “fully, the initiative for the return and reparation of African cultural properties to the continent as it will help Africans and in particular, the descendants of the communities, groups and individuals who created and produced these cultural properties to reconnect to their history, to their pioneers, to their knowledge ands their skills”.
“This reconnection of the past and the present will also help to build new relations with the international community, especially that of Europe, which was principally responsible for the original thefts of the cultural properties.
President Akufo-Addo, in his address, observed that the subject of restitution of cultural properties was stolen mainly by Europeans and the call for the payment of reparations for the slave trade? can be complicated.
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To this end, the President said his government has put in place a a body that is essentially expected to research into the subject matter and advise on best practices in the country’s efforts to secure the restitution of her cultural properties and the payment of reparations.