The GH80 million set aside for the National Cathedral’s building has been delayed by the Trades and Industry Committee of Parliament.
The Committee claims that there is a covert reason behind the particular distribution. Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, a member of the Committee, stated to the press that the estimates wouldn’t be authorized until they were happy with the responses to the many questions they are posing. The Committee concluded that we cannot simply approve this GH80 million; we also need to know how the other GH339 million was spent. What did it entail?
“The GH₵80 million you want us to approve, how did it find space in the budget line of the Ministry of Tourism when the Minister and the directors could not speak to the questions we were asking? What constitutes the GH₵80 million, they should give us a breakdown,” on Tuesday, December 13, he revealed this in an interview with Kwaku Asante, JoyNews’ Parliamentary Affairs Correspondent.
According to the MP, the Committee has asked the Finance Minister and other interested parties to explain why GH₵339 million has already been spent on the National Cathedral. “Those who expended the money we are inviting them, we are inviting the Secretariat to come and explain, the Minister for Finance to come and explain to us how they spent those monies. If not, it will be unconscionable if we will go ahead to approve this,” he stated.
The allotment, according to Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed’s claims, was imposed on the Ministry by the Presidency without the Minister or the Ministry’s technocrats’ consent. He contended that the MoT technocrats were unable to give the Committee a breakdown of the allocation.
“Is it the case that it was imposed on the Minister and the Ministry from the flagstaff House? I get the sense that is what happened, because if it was not imposed on the Minister, the Directors and the Chief Directors who were all there, they should have been able to provide us with the answers, they could not do that so it is ridiculous,” he added.
The appropriation bill for the 2023 Budget, which the Finance Minister presented and included the GH80 million investment for the National Cathedral, has not yet been approved by Parliament.
