National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer John Dramani Mahama has accused the Akufo-Addo-led government of allocating over $450 million to the National Cathedral project amidst major challenges in the education sector.
Addressing religious leaders in Wa State as part of his “Ghana Construction Tour” in the Upper West Region, Mr Mahama said spending so much taxpayer money on a cathedral would not receive God’s approval. Ta.
“The president said he swore to God that he would build a cathedral for him if he won the election. So this is his personal pledge, and if you want to build it, people who support that belief “We have to raise funds to build it. And we were told that no public funds would be used for the cathedral,” he said.
“But in the end, we found out that the finance minister was exempting people from paying their taxes. Public funds, including those from people of other faiths, cannot be used to build a cathedral exclusively for Christians.” he added.
The former President emphasized the urgency of directing these funds to education, especially when basic schools lack the necessary resources.
He questioned the legitimacy of allocating such a large budget to the cathedral project, especially considering the government’s spending on consultancy services.
“So far, $58 million of public money has been spent just to dig a deep hole, but in this day and age, there is no justification for children not having textbooks but not having desks in school. You have to ask yourself, is it true?”
“We have been coming out with new curricula for five years, but we have not provided textbooks to basic schools. They say we should spend 10 million dollars. Even God would do that.” He’s angry at us. ”