Cape Coast South Member of Parliament, Kweku Ricketts-Hagan has said the National Cathedral project must now be subjected to the Public-Private-Partnership laws following the clarification by the National Cathedral Secretariat that the project is a public project, not private.
He stated that there are laws governing how state projects should be funded therefore, this project must go to Parliament for the necessary deliberations to be done on it by the House.
Bringing finality to the debate as to whether the project is state or privately owned, the Secretariat in a statement on Friday June 17 said “In his first official announcement on the project on March 6, 2017 the President underscored the nature of the project as a national cathedral for interdenominational worship services for the nation. Subsequent elaborations, led to three main reasons as the rationale for the project, namely i) gesture of thanksgiving ii) symbol of the Christian presence and contributions to the nation, and iii) a personal pledge to God. Of these three reasons, the personal pledge came to be associated with the Cathedral as a “private” project that needed to be developed without state support.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the National Cathedral is a National Monument, and thus a public, not private, project. Legally, the National Cathedral of Ghana is a state-owned company limited by guarantee, and was incorporated under the Companies Act, 1963 (Act 179) on July 18, 2019. We hope this brings to a closure the seemingly vexatious issue of whether the National Cathedral is a private or public initiative. The National Cathedral is a National Monument and Asset, and not a Private project. It is, however being developed in partnership between the state and the church,” a statement by the Secretariat on Friday June 17 said.
Reacting to the statement of the Secretariat, Mr Ricketts Hagan said “It should be subjected to the laws of the public private partnership.
“We have laws on PPP, so we have to go to the beginning of this project and subject it to PPP laws, for this project to come to parliament.”