Two prominent priests who are also members of the Board of Trustees for the contentious National Cathedral project have issued a plea for the project to be suspended immediately and subjected to an audit.
The two men, Archbishop Duncan Williams and Reverend Eastwood Anaba, have stated that the controversy that has surrounded the project is the impetus behind their decision.
They believe that the suspension will make it possible for transparency and accountability to be offered to the people of Ghana.
They demanded an independent audit of the expenses of the project in a document that was delivered to the Board of Trustees on Monday, January 23, and was seen by MyJoyOnline.com.
Both of these revered preachers agreed that whoever serves as the auditor(s) has to have a national reputation.
“That in the spirit and cause of transparency and accountability to the Ghanaian people, the current Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral shall appoint an independent, nationally recognized accounting firm to audit all public funds contributed to and spent by the National Cathedral,” the resolution reads.
“That in the spirit and cause of transparency and accountability to the Ghanaian people, the current Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral shall appoint an independent,
“The entire cost of the project will also be audited by our team of auditors.” According to the extracts of the letter, the selection of an auditor is supposed to take place before the postponement of operations involving the Board of Trustees.
In the meanwhile, the two biblical experts concurred that the undertaking should be put on hold until such time as the economic climate in the nation improves.
According to passages taken from the document, “the present efforts towards the construction of Ghana’s National Cathedral will be suspended till the atmospherics in Ghana are better and the audit of the Cathedral account is done.”
Since President Akufo-Addo made the first announcement of the project, the construction of the National Cathedral has been one of the most contentious topics of discussion in the public arena.
In addition to worries over accountability, which have been brought up on several occasions by the Minority in Parliament, there have also been reservations regarding the project’s relevancy in light of the economic crisis that the country is currently experiencing.
Bishop Dag Heward-Mills, the founder of LightHouse Chapel International, resigned from the Board of Trustees of the Cathedral in August 2022 due to the abundance of problems that had arisen during his tenure.
As a result, the preacher did not give any particular explanation for his departure, which means that the general public is forced to rely on their own assumptions and hypotheses in order to understand why the well-known man of God departed the scene.
On the other hand, the bishop’s reasons for leaving the board have become public knowledge five months after his resignation took effect.
The veteran Bible instructor wrote in his resignation letter, which appears to have been made public not too long ago, that the reasons for his departure were his unresolved concerns about the cost of the National Cathedral and other important issues. He also cited other issues as contributing factors.
The bishop wrote the aforementioned letter, which was then addressed to the chairman of the board of trustees of the National Cathedral.
“I believe that the manner in which the concerns that I have brought up in a number of letters have been handled has been regrettable. According to Dag Heward-Mills, “In the past, my letters have been disregarded; they have not been responded to for years, and at best, they have been addressed flippantly.”
“You may recall that I have passionately talked and written a great deal about the expenses, the design, the site, the fundraising, the mobilization of the churches, and the function of the trustees. I hope that you have found this information useful.
If we had paid attention to these, our project would have been far more feasible. “In a general sense, my contributions, my ideas, and my messages have been trivialized and ignored,” more disclosures in the letter stated.