From March 2018, when president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, as part of Ghana‘s 60th anniversary celebrations, unveiled the design for the national cathedral, it has continued to elicit mixed reactions, and has been greeted with skepticism and mistrust.
Nearly five years after the cathedral was unveiled, it is still in the news for all the wrong reasons. The latest is the claim by the Secretariat of the Board of Trustees that, once the project is completed and fully operational, it is projected to raise in excess of about USD$ 95,000,000.00 million dollars in revenue within the first 5 years of operation.
According to projections made by the Secretariat of the Board of Trustees, the National Cathedral is expected to receive about 400,000 visitors annually from Africa, other parts of the world and from within Ghana.
It is estimated that 30% of the visitors (120,000) will be foreigners and 70% (280,000) will be people living and working in Ghana.
Out of the 70%, they indicate that 40% (160,000) will be adults, 20% (80,000), will be children between the ages of 10 -17, and 10% (40,000) will be what they have termed ‘groups’.
They further project that adults (from outside Ghana) at an entrance fee of $15.00 multiplied by the estimated 120,000 visitors annually, will generate some USD $1,800,000.00.
On the domestic front, the secretariat projects that the 40% (160,000) adults in Ghana at a fee of USD $ 8.00, will see the National Cathedral generating about USD $1,280,000.00.
This newspaper is shocked at the revelation, because as far as we are concerned the Cathedral is not an income generating venture, like the National Theatre and the Conference Centre.
Even with the two, how much has the state made from them, that we are being told the Cathedral is going to rake in USD$ 95,000,000.00, within five years.
In our opinion, it is like the proverbial rat that ate a child’s corn and threw its chaff in the child’s face. Projections have now become the new economic stimuli. The board of Trustee should come with better particulars to convince Ghanaians that, indeed the cathedral will generate some income to that tune as projected.
