National Cathedral: No idea about seed capital - Duncan Williams

The 13-member Board of Trustees for the construction of the controversial National Cathedral says it does not know how much government is providing as seed capital.

Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta disclosed during the presentation of the 2019 budget that government would provide the seed capital for the construction of the Cathedral.

“Mr Speaker, the state is facilitating this process by providing the land, the Secretariat, and seed money for the preparatory phase,” he stated last month.

But answering a question on how much the government is providing, Chairman for the fundraising committee for the construction of the Cathedral, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan Williams said: “I don’t know.”

“So you can ask the Minister of Finance. He hasn’t told us yet,” he emphasized.

Meanwhile, he assured that all concerns regarding the project will be adequately addressed in due time.

Many have questioned the essence of the project, especially the location which requires demolition of some government bungalows.

But the Founder of Action Chapel argued a proper addressing of the concerns will cure the resistance.

“As members of the trustees, we are listening, we are assessing, we are looking and we are addressing the issues that are coming up. So, it is not like we are ignoring it. We are listening and we are addressing a lot of issues,” he said.

“We intend to engage the media to bring clarity to a lot of the unanswered questions and to address some of the speculations out there.

“We need to make sense of some of the speculations that are going around,” he added.

Many Ghanaians have expressed their opposition to the construction of the Cathedral, which the government is providing seed money for.

Labour Unions in an effort to dissuade the government from continuing with the planned construction of the Cathedral asked President Akufo-Addo to shelve “this plan otherwise we will invite all Ghanaians to join us to campaign vehemently against this misplaced priority and to protect the national purse.”

A recent survey said 64.31 per cent of respondents are strongly opposed to the construction of the cathedral across all demographics, an apparent departure from the President’s assertion that a Christian majority in the country was an indication of support for the idea.

The poll conducted by iPoll Ghana also revealed that the opposition was strongest among the young and the highly educated, which suggests a broader demographic shift in how religion is perceived and experienced.