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The approval of the GH$80 million budget projections for the National Cathedral’s completion in 2023 was rejected by the minority in parliament.
The Minority claims that this is in response to the Finance Ministry’s refusal to account for GH114 million of the GH339 million already spent on the project.
Several Ghanaians continue to question the wisdom of the government funding a structure that is believed to be President Akufo-personal Addo’s vow to God, which has raised many problems around the National Cathedral project.
With an 11:10 majority vote, the committee’s minority side rejected the budget.
Mr. Yussif Sulemana, a committee member, stated to press on December 20, 2022: “I can tell you on authority that at the end of the day, we had to vote and after the vote, the minority carried the day. We have voted against it and we are saying that this is not the time for us to be spending that huge sum of money on building a cathedral”.
The Bole-Bamboi MP said: “Apart from that, we were told at the committee[-level] that they had already spent GHS339 million and when we asked them to give us evidence of how the money was spent, it was a challenge”.
“we were told that they have moved the cathedral from wherever it was to the ministry of tourism. And the question I put to them was that that organisation that is handling this cathedral, the secretariat, is it under the ministry of tourism?”
“If it’s not under the ministry of tourism, then it means that you want o use the ministry as a conduit to send the money wherever you want to send it and we, the minority, will not accept it”.
Recently, President Nana Akufo-Addo declared that after it is finished, the National Cathedral will serve as a rallying point for the entire Christian community of Ghana, which accounts for more than 70% of the country’s population. “To the Almighty for the blessings He has bestowed upon our nation, sparing us the ravages of civil war that have bedevilled the histories of virtually all our neighbors, and the outbreak of deadly mass epidemics,” he said.
The president made this clear on Sunday, December 18, 2022, during his speech at the Ga Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana’s centennial commemoration, which took place in Black Star Square in Accra.
In his remarks to the crowd, which included Rev. Prof. Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, he urged the Ga Presbytery and all Christians to keep praying for peace and harmony in Ghana so that the country might go forward in harmony.
“For me and my government to properly carry out our mandate, we need the aid of every Ghanaian, as well as the prayers of the church.
Please pray for me so that Almighty God would continue to grant me the knowledge, power, bravery, and compassion I need to carry out my responsibilities as a decent leader.
Everything is possible with Him since the Lord is in charge of the conflict. Because this will pass, too, the president remarked.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
