The Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta in presenting the 2019 budget says the government will organize a fundraising ceremony to enable them gather enough money for the construction of the National Cathedral.
This move as explained by the Finance Minister during the 2019 budget reading is to ensure that the project does not take any toll on the country’s finances.
The fundraisers will be organized in Ghana and the United States of America in December 2018, and February 2019 respectively.
“The President is determined that the building of the National Cathedral would not put undue financial burden on the state. He has therefore proposed a partnership between the State and the Ghanaian Christian community both at home and in the Diasporaâ€.
“The formal launch of this national fundraising campaign is slated for December 28, 2018 in Ghana, and February 2019 in the United States, he disclosed.
Ken Ofori Atta also clarified that government is among other things providing the initial resources for the project, hence the partnership is to facilitate the country’s developmental agenda.
 “The state is facilitating this process by providing the land, the Secretariat, and seed money for the preparatory phase. This National Cathedral partnership framework operationalizes, and indeed is a practical expression of the social partnership envisaged to foster participatory development of the country as our collective goal.â€
About the National Cathedral
The National Cathedral is to serve as a national non-denominational Christian worship centre for the country.
Some nine justices of the Court of Appeal as well as other judicial staff occupying bungalows around the site earmarked for the project have been asked to vacate to make way for the construction of the 5,000-seater capacity facility.
They are to move into temporary residential buildings pending the construction of some 21 new bungalows on the Second Circular Road – Cantonments in Accra.
These will be completed and handed over by January 2020.
In March 2017, the Convention Peoples Party’s (CPP), James Kwabena Bomfeh, also known as Kabila, went before the Supreme Court, seeking the Court’s intervention against Government’s decision to construct a National Cathedral as well as the organisation of Hajj pilgrimages.
The case has since been adjourned to allow lawyers of the plaintiff to amend their original writ.
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