Do you have to be NDC or CPP to know constructing a National Cathedral now is wrong? - Obiri Boahen

The former Deputy General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Obiri Boahen, has bemoaned the insistence of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to go on with the construction of the National Cathedral of Ghana.

According to him, it does make sense for a government that goes around 'begging' for money not to use it on productive sectors of the economy.

Speaking in a Neat FM interview monitored by GhanaWeb, Obiri Boahen added that it is a shame that the money allocated for the construction of the National Cathedral in the 2023 budget is even higher than the budget allocation for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

"The people who travel abroad to beg for money for the National Cathedral use first-class tickets. You are going to beg for money to build the house of God, and you will not sit in economy class.

"(The money allocated for the National Cathedral) is more than the money allocated to the agriculture minister. Do you have to be a member of the NDC or CPP to see that this is wrong?

"Look at the board (of the National Cathedral); there are very renowned pastors on it, but none of them is complaining," he said in Twi.

Meanwhile, Parliament's Trades and Industry Committee has suspended the approval of an amount of GHC 80 million allocated for the construction of the National Cathedral.

Tamale Central Member of Parliament, Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, who disclosed the development to Accra-based JoyNews on December 13, said the suspension will be in place until justification for the allocation is made.

"What the Committee decided was that we cannot just approve this GHC 80 million; we must know how the other GHC 339 million was spent. What did it constitute?

"The GHC80 million you want us to approve, how did it find space in the budget line of the Ministry of Tourism when the Minister and the directors could not speak to the questions we were asking? What constitutes the GHC 80 million? They should give us a breakdown," he stressed.

Watch the interview below:



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