National Cathedral: After 6 years and US$30m, Ghanaians see only a massive pit - Heward-Mills laments

The founder and leader of the Lighthouse Chapel International, Bishop Dag Heward-Mills, has said that questions being raised by Ghanaians on the construction of the National Cathedral of Ghana are legitimate.

According to him, the public has the right to ask questions about the project because, 6 years after the construction of the project started and after using $30 million of public funds, they can only see a huge pit in the centre of Accra, citinewroom.com reports.

Heward-Mills, who is reported to have made these remarks in a letter he wrote to the Board of Trustees and Executive Director of the National Cathedral, added that Ghanaians deserve some answers to the questions they have raised.

“I am a firm believer in the president’s vision. I believe that the public can see and is questioning the fact that we have spent almost six years since the sod-cutting of this project as well as over $30m (thirty million dollars) of public funds, to excavate a massive pit in the centre of the city.

“I do believe that many of the questions that are being asked and hurled at the National Cathedral Project are reasonable and legitimate questions by objective citizens who just want answers to their questions,” parts of the letter is quoted by citinewsroom.com.

The pastor also raised some concerns about payments made to stakeholders involved in the cathedral project.

“Continuing to pay contractors $40,000 (forty thousand dollars) a month as we wait to procure a huge loan in this hostile atmosphere sounds dicey to me. I do believe that almost six years down the line, we need to look at a different approach to achieve our goal of building God’s house in Ghana,” he said.

He also said that the fund-raising methods used by the supervisors of the project did not yield much result, with some of the programmes organised to raise funds costing more than the monies raised.

"I suggest another form of fund-raising where we would be guaranteed more donations from denominations, churches, individuals, businessmen and corporate bodies. I would be happy to discuss these if the committee is interested in that,” he added.

IB/BOG