No contract has been awarded to Adjaye for ‘National Cathedral of Rwanda’ – Bright Simons confirms

The vice president of IMANI Africa, Bright Simons, has rejected claims in the Ghanaian media that the contract for the design of a new national cathedral for Rwanda, a new Kigali Cathedral, has been awarded to the architect for the National Cathedral of Ghana, Sir David Adjaye.

Simon's remark comes after claims by proponents of the government and a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral of Ghana, Dr Joyce Aryee, that Sir Adjaye, who has been berated for his work in the construction of Ghana's cathedral, got the Rwanda job because of his competence.

According to the IMANI vice president, his checks from the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) confirms that there is no such contract.

"I just confirmed directly with the RDB that no such contract to build a cathedral has been awarded to Sir David Adjaye.

"At least, as of today. Citi Newsroom rarely slips, however. So, this is curious. I wonder," parts of the tweet he shared on Wednesday, May 25, 2023.

Simon, however, added that the claims are being made because "maybe there is intel that such an award will be made.".

GhanaWeb, on Saturday, May 21, 2023, fact-checked the claim which was made in a news publication by citinewsroom.com.

What GhanaWeb Fact-Check team found:

Our first stop was to get a local news portal or government site that had reported on the development or even posted about it on social media.

Rwanda's leading pro-government news portal is the New Time Rwanda news portal which had no active webpage with the story except for a broken link. It appears that the story they published had been pulled down.

Second step, we went through the social media handles of the Rwandan Development Board which had nothing related to Kigali Cathedral throughout May 11, the day the said deal was announced during a budget hearing.

Curious so, because the RDB is very active on social media and posts all major updates of its activities in real-time. Its website also has no trace of such a development.

Third step: The website of Adjaye and Associates will ordinarily post such deals on their news page.

The most recent news on that page dates back to March 21, titled: "Street Plaza by Adjaye Associates with Daniel Boyd," a reference to a project that they were working on in Sydney, Australia's Central Business District.

Fourth step: When you type "Rwanda" into the search engine of the Adjaye and Associates website, you get one news item popping up.

It relates to the 2015 story by dezeen.com titled: "David Adjaye unveils designs for children's cancer treatment centre in Rwanda"

Its first two paragraphs read: "British architect David Adjaye has revealed plans for a 100-bed paediatric cancer centre in Rwanda, East Africa.

"The architect, who was born in Tanzania, is designing the Gahanga International Children's Cancer Hospital for a four-hectare site in Gahanga, a region to the south of Rwandan capital Kigali."

The project was actually commissioned by an NGO and co-funded by a Rwandan diplomat.

Conclusion:

There is no concrete evidence that Adjaye and Associates have been commissioned to design the Kigali Cathedral.

What we can report is that there have been plans to build the facility but nothing has so far been mooted about architectural drawings.

View Bright Simons' tweet below:

I just confirmed directly with the RDB that no such contract to build a cathedral has been awarded to Sir David Adjaye. At least, as of today. Citi Newsroom rarely slips however. So, this is curious. I wonder. ???? pic.twitter.com/TDiRQwKlcO

— Bright Simons (@BBSimons) May 24, 2023

IB/OGB