Prophet Dr. Kofi Oduro of the Alabaster International Ministry has said President Nana Akufo-Addo is redeeming his personal national cathedral pledge to God through lies and deception.
According to Prophet Oduro, the President and the government said no national funds would be used for the cathedral but that has turned out not to be the case now.
Prophet Oduro, who supports the idea of a national cathedral, however, told OB Nartey on the maiden edition of No.1 FM’s mid-morning show Nyame Nsa Wom on Monday, 13 June 2022 that the way the president and the government are going about it is wrong.
“Anybody who will say there is no need for a national cathedral has missed the point because we have a national mosque. The essence and the need for a national cathedral are 100 percent perfect but the way we are going about it, if we are not careful, even Christians will say it offends God”, he said.
“The way government is going about this whole thing; let me use the national mosque for example not a cedi of this nation was used for the construction of the national mosque. It was built by the Turkish government and the Muslim community in Ghana. Why can’t we do the same with the national cathedral? Why are we going to tax this on the nation?”
“There are certain things that are not right. The president made a personal vow to God. That vow must be redeemed but not this strategy, not this method”.
“The purpose is perfect. We need a national cathedral [but] your methodology is wrong”, he told the president, insisting: “Absolutely wrong”.
“You told us that state fund would not be used. No state funds are required. That’s deception. That’s a lie. You are building something for God”, he said.
In his view, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo could have just invited businessmen and women to the Jubilee House and put his funding request before them and would be surprised that just one person would have given $100,000,000 toward the construction of the national cathedral.
“But the way we are going about it, we are going to drag the names of all these men of integrity on the board of the national cathedral into the mud”.
“We’ll destroy their reputation with this national cathedral”, he warned.
Just a few days ago, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta wondered if using state funds to build the national cathedral that President Nana Akufo-Addo promised to put up for God if he won the presidency, was too much.
“At any point in time when these buildings were built in Europe, was it ever the right time? How do we fund it will become the question”, he asked in an interview on state-owned GTV on Sunday, 12 June 2022.
“Is the executive mindful of the current situation? We shouldn’t snuff out our religiousness or spirituality because we are poor”, he noted.
“The Lord will understand if we put our widow’s mite in there”, Mr. Ofori-Atta noted.
“That question being asked is that: Are we spending money from state coffers? Is that too much to do because we are politicizing it? Do we really want to stop it? That is going to be my question.”
He said: “As a minister of finance, we are looking at resources and how much we put in there at every point in time that is sensible and, so, as we speak, we have spent less than one-thousandth of our expenditure on that.”
“I am very confident of raising revenue to be able to fund this and then, more importantly, if I want to look into the economics of it, I truly see an overwhelming capacity that this will pay off.
“Typically, I am looking at an internal rate of return, so, we should put this in mind”, the president’s cousin noted.
The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Mr. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, had alleged that on the 29th of October 2020, a few weeks before the national elections, Mr. Ofori-Atta, acting on a request by President Akufo-Addo’s Chief of Staff, authorized the release of GHS142,762,500.00 for national cathedral planned activities.
According to Mr. Ablakwa, contrary to legal requirements, the government concealed “this ginormous GHS142.7 million from Parliament as they deliberately failed to disclose this item as part of their expenditure returns of 2020 during the 2021 budget consideration in Parliament.”
This 2020 cathedral expenditure, the opposition MP noted, was also kept away from the Auditor-General in his 2020 audit.
In a Facebook post, the lawmaker said so far, adding this latest exposé to his previous leaks, the Akufo-Addo government has spent GHS199,832,603.00 of taxpayer funds on a cathedral which was originally presented to Ghanaians as a personal pledge to God that will not be executed with taxpayer funds.
Digging into the tonnes of documents, Mr. Ablakwa stated that many more millions have been paid illegally which “we shall continue to put out to the glory of God and in the overall national interest. On a further scarier note, the figures we are currently reviewing do not look like anything near a seed capital.”
He said this GHS200 million cathedral gate has turned out to be the biggest presidential scandal in Ghana’s entire history.
He described as terribly shocking, how President Akufo-Addo and his men could engage in “such ungodly, illegal and insensitive conduct.”
In the name of a cathedral project, Mr. Ablakwa again alleged that a corrupt slush fund has been created to siphon taxpayer funds from the suffering masses on the blind side of Parliament, the Auditor-General, CSOs, and other accountability systems.
“Instructively, these illegal diversions took place when the government was engaged in massive vote-buying to win the 2020 elections; it was also the period COVID-19 had peaked and placed enormous pressure on our health delivery as many Ghanaians died, and yet President Akufo-Addo claimed he couldn’t find the resources to fulfill his Agenda 111 pledge of building new hospitals,” he stated.
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YOU LOOK LIKE A CREEP PERDAPHILE AND I DO NOT TRUST YOUR LIES AND KEEP TO YOURSELF AND CONGREGATION YOU BEEN STEALING FROM THEM WITHOUT PAYING TAX. APART FROM BUILDING A CHURCH WITH CONGREGATION MONEY WHATELSE HAVE DONE TO HELP THE POOR GHANAIANS AM SURE NOTHING. THESE ARE THE PASTORS DRIVING EXPENSIVE CARS AND CONGREGATION LEAVING IN SQUALLY POVERTY COLLECTING THEIR LITTLE 2 CEDIS EVERY SUNDAY.
@Andrews I think you may not have understood me well. I understand there are diverse faith in the country , however Christians constitute about 70% or more . If the Turkish government has been able to use Turkish tax payers money to help us build a national mosque, what is so wrong when we rely on ourselves to build something national too. our next door neighbours Nigeria, has almost equal number of Christians and Muslims yet they also have a national Cathedral to represent that faith. All am saying is that our focus should be on the accountability of the government about exact amount they want to put in the project and value for money delivery of the project. Other countries who come to help is in Ghana always use part of their taxes to help us. But its about time we also rely on our own resources. We may question the priority of the project but cannot be hypocritical about enjoying other nations tax resources whilst bashing the use of tax resources. There are poor people in Turkey too who may prefer that money could have been used for them but rather was donated to Ghana to build a mosque
It's funny to say that the national cathedral was a personal pledge from Nana Addo. Who muted the idea of free SHS? Was it the NPP or akufo addo? Then Nana Addo should personally fund SHS to redeem his pledge to Ghanaians and not a burden on the national purse.
The reality is that we need national monuments. You travel around the world and pay money just to visit attractions in Europe, Asia, the Americas and some places in Africa. You come back to Ghana and we have nothing. We don't even have an auditorium that can sit 10000 people. Accra Sports stadium cannot compare to the stadium of a small regional college in the US. Yes we are poor, but do we have to wait till we are rich before building some of these things? Tourism is a multi billion dollar industry and people will travel and spend money to see fancy things. Yes, l am against a president using state resources to fulfill a personal pledge to God but can we have a constructive discourse about the lack of national monuments in Ghana? And is poverty an excuse not to build a modern state? The poor will always be with us.
Man i want know how much you and your church have contributed.
SOME OF US SPPORT THE IDEA. STATE SPONSORSHIP OR NOT, THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE CATHERAL MUST GO ON.
They will all come back and apologize to Nana in some years to come. They did same to Kuffour by lying against him. Some years later, they are apologizing and making a hero of him!
@Ceejay please I think the Pastor sounds convincing. You should note that not every Ghanaian is a Christian. We have Muslims, Traditionalist, Atheist, Buddhist, Rastafarians and many more religious bodies. So to use the tax payers money for the building of the National Cathedral in mt view is not appropriate. It should be funded by the christian community and not tax payers monies.
Ghana needs reforms , if there are good systems in place the President will not order this for his personal ideas .It good to build for God but He God will be happy with Ghanaians are truthful , honesty , loving ourselves and respecting , selfless ,innovative and hardworking .
Please Sir, I beg to differ on your statement. You mentioned that the national mosque was built by the Turkish government and the Muslim community and that we did not put a pesewa of our state money into it. Fair enough if it was so, but don't forget to ask where the Turkish Government got the money from to come help us to build the Mosque. Obviously it will come from the taxes they have also collected in Turkey from their citizens. So we are happy for others to come and help us with their taxes but we are not ready to use our taxes to do such things for our selves. Lets stop the hypocrisy and be self reliant in all we do . We may argue if its a priority project in the midst of economic challenges but what I believe the government must do is to be honest and clear about how much they want to put into the project and be accountable to us so we all put our mind to rest . We should never pride ourselves with benefiting from the resources of other nations to achieve things when we can mobilize ourselves to do it on our own. It will help us from being under their control. Turkey will not come and build a mosque for free if there are no other interests attached to it. Wake up black people.