NDC MP raises alarm over discrepancy in amount of money blown on National Cathedral

Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, the Member of Parliament for South Dayi has highlighted what he believes to be discrepancies in the amount of money spent by the state on the National Cathedral so far.

Dafeamekpor in a social media post shared excerpts of document from the Finance Ministry and the National Cathedral Secretariat which shows varied figures in the total amount of money expended on the controversial project.

Whiles the Finance Ministry mentioned GH₵339m as the amount spent on the project, the secretariat had GH₵225m.

The figures submitted to Parliament by both the Finance Ministry and National Secretariat showed a GH₵114m difference.

“When Ken Ofori Atta appeared before the Adhoc Committee in Parliament, he gave a document that shows that he had paid Ghc339m to the National Cathedral project. However, when the Cathedral people came before the joint Committee on Trade & Sports, they had received only Ghc225m”, he tweeted. “

Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament has blocked the GH₵80m allocated for the cathedral in the 2023 budget.

Yussif Sulemana, the member of Parliament for Bole-Bamboi told journalists on Tuesday, 20 December 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”.

"Apart from that, we were told at the committee [level] that they had already spent GH¢339 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 organization 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”.

According to President Akuf-Addo, the Cathedral is Ghana’s way of expressing gratitude to God for not allowing any natural disaster to befall the country.

KPE