Government invests over Ghc 340 million building the National Cathedral

By the end of December 2022, the Akufo-Addo-led administration would have blown through over GHC340 on the contentious national cathedral’s construction.

This comprises GHC225 million paid directly to the Secretariat and GHC113 million given directly to Sir David Adjaye, the Consultant.

In a status report on the National Cathedral presented at the Bible Reading Marathon Thanksgiving Service at the project site on Tuesday, January 2, 2023, Dr. Paul Poku Mensah, Executive Director of the National Cathedral Secretariat, made this known.

“For purposes of clarity, I want to report a verbatim memo I sent on this issue dated 19th January 2022 and addressed to the Clerk of Parliament. The indication was that the government has given us GHC339 million and we could account for GHC225 million leaving GHC114 million missing. Here, I quote what I wrote to the Clerk. As we indicated to the Committee on Thursday, December 15, 2022, the total amount paid by the government of Ghana to the National Cathedral project is GHC339 million. This total is made up of the following: the amount paid directly to the National Cathedral Secretariat is GHC225 million. The amount paid directly to the Consultant, Adjaye Associates & Design Team is GHC113.040.54.67 million The two payments total GHC339.003.064.86.”

“So, there are no missing funds that could not be accounted for. Secondly, the detailed account for these funds was provided to Parliament on December 15, 2022, by the Secretariat. In the case of the accounting from the Secretariat, this involves among others, total payments made to the contractor, and total payments made to the Bible Museum and Biblical Gardens Design Team.”

Dr. Paul Opoku Mensah voiced his anger over what he called some Members of Parliament’s misrepresenting of the project’s facts.

“While there will always be opposition to initiatives of this sort, we are worried about the misrepresentations, especially when they come from lawmakers.

For instance, it is concerning that the contract is still being misrepresented to the consultants despite the fact that none of the amounts mentioned is anywhere close to the contract value.

Actually, the contract value is 12.5% when the Ministry of Works and Housing permits for 15.5%, not the 34% they said we paid the architect.

Furthermore, the 12.5% will remain the same regardless of what happens to the overall cost.

More importantly, the contract is not for the services of an architect but rather a group of 15 foreign and Ghanaian businesses, with Sir David Adjaye Associates serving as the main consultant.

Source: Ghanatodayonline.com