The President of the Bono Regional House of Chiefs, Dormaahene, Osagyefo Oseadeyo Agyemang Badu II has appealed to President Akufo-Addo to put on hold the construction of the national cathedral and fix the economic hardship facing the country.
According to him, though it will be an important edifice, the idea should be halted considering the current hardship in the country.
Dormaahene joins a litany of relevant personalities who have called for the suspension of the construction of the project.
He made this known to the Regional Minister, Justina Owusu-Banahene at a general meeting on Tuesday, December 20.
“You talked to God to build a national cathedral in his honour if you won the election. It is a good thing to do. However, given the economic difficulties Ghanaians are facing around this time, the people have asked me to tell you to put the project on hold. It is your initiative and no one can take that away from you but don’t use the national coffers to build the cathedral.
“Tell him to focus on economic recovery so that in good times even if he is not able to complete it, any of his brothers could do so. That is what Ghanaians want me to tell you,” he said.
Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo has defended the need to complete the construction of the project.
He insists that the controversial project will signify an appreciation to God who he believes has spared the country from conflicts and plagues over the years.
According to him, the project whose 2023 budgetary allocation approval has been suspended will be geared toward thanking God for “sparing us the ravages of civil war that have bedeviled the histories of virtually all our neighbours and the outbreak of deadly mass epidemics but also as a rallying point for the entire Christian community of Ghana, which represents seventy-plus percent of the population.”
He spoke during the centenary celebration of the Ga Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana at the Black Star Square in Accra on December 18.
Also, Parliament has blocked the approval of the GH₵80 million cedis allocated to fund the construction of the National Cathedral project.
Minority MPs on the Trades and Industry Committee on Tuesday voted an 11-10 decision to disapprove the funds for the construction of the Cathedral.
Explaining the Minority’s hesitance to approve the fund, the Ranking Member on the Trades and Industry Committee, Armah Kofi Buah says the Committee is not satisfied with the documentation provided.
“The Ministry of Tourism came and they couldn’t give us the answers we needed. In terms of the itemised list of what that GH₵80 million was for. We sent them back and they brought the cathedral secretariat. Well, we asked them to give us every detail, every sub-contractor, and how those contracts were awarded. They brought us some documents unfortunately after we perused the documents, they could only account for about GH₵225 million,” he said.
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