Kleptomaniac Ofori-Atta Instructed Release Of Ghc25million For National Cathedral

-Estimated GHC 900 million Possibly Raised From “Susu”

Finance Minister, Ofori-Atta, whose unbridled personal interest has been fingered for Ghana’s economic woes has released another GHC 25 million to the contractor working on the highly unpopular National Cathedral project.

A March 31, 2022 letter seen by Whatsup News from the Finance Minister instructed the Controller and Accountant General to release the money to RIBADE Limited as an addendum to some unknown amount that had earlier been released towards the project.

“Please refer to letter No. SCR/DE3/296/02 dated 17th March 2022 from the Chief of Staff, Office of the President and National Cathedral of Ghana’s memo dated 28th March 2022 on the above subject. Authority is hereby granted you to release the sum Ghc25,000,000.00 as additional seed money to the National Cathedral Secretariat for the construction of the National Cathedral for part payment of outstanding claims from RIBADE Limited,” the letter said.

This latest release is an addition to over US$30 million of taxpayers’ cash released earlier to the project and over US$ 20 million in destroyed state properties for the cathedral project which is a personal pledge to his “God”.

Also, the amount is beside the fact that the Akufo Addo administration may have already raised GHC 900 million from one million Ghanaians who were conscripted into the “Ketoa Biaa Nsua” initiative launched by Ofori-Atta late 2021.

The Ketoa Biaa Nsua fund required some one million Ghanaians to contribute GHC 100 million monthly from September 2021 for the construction of the controversial cathedral. A simple summation will indicate that if indeed the government got the willing contributors, it would have raised up to GHC 900 million by May 2022 and thus had absolutely no reason to allocate another GHC 25 million for the project.

The government has been completely opaque about the Ketoa Biaa Nsua fund and is thus impossible to access the exact amounts raised.

The government has been under criticism from sections of the public over the national cathedral project which is seen as a waste of money the government, and a characteristic plundering tendency of Ken Ofori-Atta who has been at the centre of many conflict of interest situations and downright accusations of corruption.

Meanwhile, the whole spectacle of indiscriminate use of public funds over irrelevant projects is coming at a time when the Akufo Addo government is claiming it has no funds to, for instance, finance the school feeding programme which it regards as one of its flagship policies.

Among myriads of investment in social programmes, the Akufo Addo is also unable to pay the 100,000 unemployed graduates it enrolled in its much-publicised Nation Builders Corps (NABCO).

Critics have strongly questioned the reason why the Akufo Addo administration is overly prioritizing the so-called national cathedral when President Akufo-Addo has admitted unequivocally that the project is his personal pledge to his God for making him win the 2016 Presidential elections.

But even though Akufo-Addo had made the promise alone to God, he is using state resources and scarce taxpayers’ funds to finance his pet project. Akufo-Addo became President in 2017, five years after being in power, he still has not fulfilled his personal vow to God despite pilfering taxpayers’ funds for it.