The Minority Caucus in Parliament has requested the presence of the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori- Atta before the House to explain how GHC25 million was outlaid to the National Cathedral Secretariat for the Cathedral construction.
According to the Minority, the National Cathedral project is not a government project, and it is unclear how public funds will be used for it.
This is followed by a letter from the Finance Ministry stating that a sum of GHC25 million has been allocated from national coffers for the construction of the National Cathedral.
MP for Adaklu Constituency, Kwame Agboza, requested that “that the very sensitive issue about government’s expenditure on the National Cathedral of which has been in public domain and payment made from the public coffers is discussed.”
“I believe it will be in the interest of this country for the Finance Minister to brief the house on the circumstances leading to the spending of that expenditure because it is believed that those expenditures could be out of what the public procurement and the Public Financial Management Act requires,” he added.
Deputy Finance Minister John Kumah, on the other hand, believes the Minority in Parliament is making “unnecessary noise” about the government’s $25 million contribution to the National Cathedral project.
He stated that the ministry has nothing to hide and that it is always prepared to render accounts on the National Cathedral project.
“If you file parliamentary questions, you wait in Parliament for the answers and not rush to the media as he [Ablakwa] has done. He also speaks about a scandal.
What is scandalous about making legitimate payments? We are prepared to answer any questions they may have,” he said.
“I don’t agree with him that the seed money which we have provided for and informed the nation about towards the contribution of the National Cathedral is scandalous. A scandal is what we witnessed when his government decided to pay Woyome millions of dollars when they didn’t even have a contract with government.
We have set our priority, which is the building of a Cathedral for the nation, and it is going to be a national monument for the country,” he added.
In the meantime, the Minority in Parliament has asked three urgent questions to the Minister of Finance, requesting information on how much the state has spent on the National Cathedral Project.
