President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has announced a cash donation of GH¢100,000 towards the National Cathedral project.
The National Cathedral project will be completed, according to the president.
Despite the numerous critiques and backlash, he asserts that this particular promise he made to God will be carried out with help from the Christian community.
President Akufo-Addo made the announcement while on a visit to the construction site where work has been put on hold because of a lack of funding.
“As I have said before, the National Cathedral will not just be another monument adorning the skyline of Accra, it will be a rallying point for the entire Christian community to come together and worship…I am therefore committed to working with the Board of Trustees to ensure the completion of this project to the glory of God.”
According to Dr. Paul Opoku Mensah, Executive Director of the National Cathedral Secretariat, the project’s building is crucial for the Church and the wider Christian community.
He further exhorted Christians to contribute financially to the project’s completion, which was initially planned to be completed in March 2024.
“If the Church Leaders stand with us on this project, we can easily raise One million people who will give us GH¢100 each. So essentially, we need the Church to stand with us. The state has done enough, all the preparatory works have been done, and the scope of work has been done without the state it was impossible,” Dr Mensah noted.
“We need the Church in Ghana to stand with us, this is a monument to the Church, this is a monument to God and a symbol of the Christian presence in Ghana,” he added.
Ken Ofori-Atta, the minister of finance, declared in May 2022 that a sum of $25 million had been approved to allow the project consultants to handle some aspects of the National Cathedral’s development.
Since it was announced, the proposal has drawn considerable controversy, censure, and opposition from the Ghanaian people, CSOs, and MPs.
But the finance minister said the amount which was tagged as “seed money” was paid in November 2020, to the project consultants.
Ken Ofori-Atta was subsequently hauled before parliament by the Minority caucus under seven grounds of a censure motion against him.
Meanwhile, the recently published 2021 Auditor-General’s report discovered that a total of GH¢142,762,500 from the national coffers was spent on the Ghana National Cathedral project in 2021.
This particular expenditure was however captured under the government’s priority programmes and interventions for the year under review.