Pressure groups Justice for Ghana and Arise Ghana in collaboration with other Civil Society Organizations (CSO) are set to picket at the construction site of the National Cathedral Wednesday, December 21 to demand Parliament reject the GH¢80 million allocation made for the project.
According to the group, the picketing is to demand the government to completely take off the national cathedral project from state funding and stop the project.
The fence around the project site, they said, should also be pulled down for the Ghanaian public to see how the public purse has been wasted.
Members of the collation against the construction of the Cathedral who spoke to the media in Parliament on Tuesday, December 20 argued the amount of money that has so far been sunk into the project must be accounted for and retrieved, especially at a time that the Ghanaian people are being given unwanted ‘haircuts.’
Spokesperson for the group, Prince Derek Adjei, stressed that monies spent on the Cathedral project must be accounted for whether spent in Ghana or the United States by the consultants. The GH¢113 million out of the GH¢339 paid to the architect of the project David Adjaye must be retrieved.
The collation, he said, is sure the GH¢80 million allocated to the project in the 2023 Budget will not be accommodated but stressed they are demanding more than a suspension of the project.
“We want a full-time score of 0-1; that is 0 for the cathedral and 1 for Ghanaians,” he added.
He disclosed that another sensitive issue that the group will be seeking answers to from the government is the decision to delve into the pensions of Ghanaians because of the negligence of Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, Governor of Bank of Ghana, Dr. Phillip Addison, and Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and the President.
The group, he said, believes very strongly that the pensions of Ghanaians must not be touched and therefore must be removed from the debt exchange programme of the government as far as Ghana’s debt restructuring is concerned.
According to Prince Derek-Agyei, the economic hardship is biting Ghanaians very hard and therefore they do not expect more nuisance taxes.
He said, “The E-levy must not happen in the form that has been proposed; that there will be no threshold for the poor, which means the government doesn’t even recognize any poor people anymore even at a time that even the rich are suffering.”
“We do not expect any increase in the Value Added Tax (VAT) and so our Parliamentarians must shoot down the following; the VAT, the E-levy, and the pensions being targeted under the debt restructuring programme and finally the National Cathedral.”
A member of Justice for Ghana, Selorm Dramani Dzramado stated that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is much too ‘soiled’ to construct and dedicate a national cathedral for God.
According to him, the way the president has ruled Ghana so far shows he does not have what it takes to glorify God because God is truth and truth is God and added, “the Cathedral as we speak is being built on lies, deception and an orgy of corruption.”
“That is why we stand strictly against it because God cannot dwell in an edifice that is built on lies.”
“I want this message to be carried to the President that he is not fit enough to build an edifice to glorify and magnify God because he (the President) and God are antipole and cannot co-exist,” he added.