The national cathedral: Public priority or white elephant?

By Professor Jeffery Haynes

Announced in March 2017 by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as a symbol of Ghana’s self-perception as a ‘Christian nation’, the national cathedral project was initially welcomed by many Ghanaians, including most church leaders. Prominent politicians from the two main parties, New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC), agreed that the national cathedral was of great public significance and should be pursued with energy.

From the start, however, the project was dogged by controversy. Some argued that the cathedral would serve as a unifying symbol and bring the nation closer to God, while others believed that the massive amount of money being invested in the project – around $450 million – could be better utilised to address pressing social and economic challenges facing the country.

Some among Ghana’s seven million-strong Muslim community, as well as less-religious and secular Ghanaians, had their doubts. They objected on the grounds of excessive cost, as they believed that the tax payer would significantly contribute to the cost of construction. The Coalition of Muslim Organisations stated that Ghana’s Christians should be capable of building a cathedral without the state’s financial sponsorship, just as the Muslim community had built a national mosque without Ghana’s state contributing financially.

Announcement

President Akufo-Addo announced the plan to build the national cathedral amidst celebrations marking Ghana’s 60 years of independence from British colonial rule, in March 2017. He explained that for him the national cathedral was fulfilment of his personal promise to God, made during the election campaign: if he won the 2016 presidential election, he would personally oversee construction of a national cathedral. The president stated that the national cathedral was to thank ‘God for his blessings, favour, grace and mercies on our nation’, to provide ‘an avenue to call the nation to prayer, to worship, to celebrate, and to mourn’, to promote ‘deep national conversations on the role of faith in building the progressive and prosperous Ghana we all want’, and to encourage ‘ideas and values that should help us build a new Ghanaian civilization’.

The national cathedral was envisaged as a ‘non-denominational Christian worship centre’, scheduled to be completed by June 2024. The cathedral complex occupies six hectares (14 acres) of state-owned land in central Accra, beginning at the Ridge roundabout area and ending at the western side of the State House/Parliament House.

When June 2024 arrived, there was no visible progress, apart from a large hole in the ground, meant for the foundations of the national cathedral. By this time, Ghana’s taxpayers had expended an estimated $58 million dollars on the project without visible success. An estimated $450 million dollars was needed to complete the project. Today, it is clear that the money was not forthcoming from anticipated Christian sources at home and abroad. Although by mid-2022, various church denominations in Ghana had contributed GH¢2.21 million ($164,000) towards the construction of the national cathedral, it was clear that domestic Christian sources would not on their pay the remaining costs of construction, for which over $400 million was still required.

Unclear

It is not clear how much more churches and individual Christians had donated by November 2024. In early 2024, Dr Paul Opoku-Mensah, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the national cathedral, had called for Ghanaians to make regular individual donations to enable the project to be completed. In addition, President Akufo-Addo requested funds from Ghana’s diaspora and from individual supporters of the national cathedral project in the USA. It is unclear how much money has resulted from these efforts and how much more needs to be amassed before completion of the project.

2024 is of course an election year, and there is much discussion in Ghana about the national cathedral and much speculation whether the project will ever be completed. President Akufo-Addo stands down as president in January 2025 and it is unclear whether his successor, most likely to be either the NPP’s Dr Mahamudu Bawumia or the NDC’s John Dramani Mahama, will complete the project. Certainly, the project is a potentially problematic legacy for President Akufo-Addo’s successor.

Critics contend that failure to include the national cathedral in the government’s own performance tracker is a regrettable oversight. Some claim that the government has not included it because it does not want more public attention on the stalling of the national cathedral project. Over seven years, the national cathedral had gone from an expression of Christian pride in a religiously plural country to become a symbol of how difficult it can be to complete costly national projects at a time of economic hardship, which Ghana had been experiencing for several years, with consistently high price inflation and with a serious, and growing, problem of unemployment, especially among the young.

What can be learned from the saga of the national cathedral and what can be done in the future to ensure that projects of national importance can be completed on time and in budget? One lesson might be that government must liaise with stakeholders at the planning stage of the project in order to ensure that there is both popular support and that ordinary citizens are convinced that the project is good value for money. A second lesson is that it is imperative to regularly update Ghanaians on a project’s problems and prospects so that they can continue to express their support. Third, in Ghana, religion and politics are constitutionally separate entities.

Religion

It is said that religion is led by faith not logic. The underlying principle underpinning the interaction of religion and politics is law, the process which necessarily governs people’s conduct. Contention over funding and building the national cathedral focuses on the issue of political influence. After seven years of inaction and controversy, it now seems clear that the main purpose of the national cathedral project was to bring together government and Christian clergy in pursuit of a mutually agreed objective which, however, turned out not to be a national priority. Future presidents need to avoid such costly and inappropriate white elephants if they wish to take Ghana forward.

The writer is an Emeritus Professor of Politics, London Metropolitan University, UK.