Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has slammed the Akufo-Addo-led government for allocating over $450 million to the National Cathedral project amid significant challenges in the education sector.
Addressing religious leaders in Wa as part of the
“Building Ghana Tour” in the Upper West Region, Mahama stated that spending
such a substantial amount of taxpayers’ money on a cathedral would not gain
God’s approval.
“The President said that he made a pledge to God that
if he won the election he would build a Cathedral for him. So it is his
personal pledge and if he wants to build it, he must gather people who support
that conviction to build that. And we were told that public funds were not
going to be used for the Cathedral”, he said.
“But eventually, we found that the Minister of
Finance was releasing public taxes. We can’t use public funds including the
funds of people of other denominations to build a Cathedral for Christians
alone”, he added.
The former President emphasized the
urgency of directing these funds toward education, particularly when basic
schools lack essential resources.
He questioned the justification for allocating such a
significant budget to the cathedral project, especially considering the
government’s expenses on consultancy services.
“So far, 58 million dollars of
public funds have been spent just to dig a deep hole and you have to ask
yourself is it justified in this day and age when children don’t have desks in
schools when children do not have textbooks?.”
“For five years, we have not provided our basic
schools with textbooks even though we have come out with a new curriculum
because we say there is no money, and you say we should use 450 million dollars
to build a Cathedral, even God will be angry with us.”
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