The Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta says government will find the resources to fund the controversial national Cathedral because it will pay off in the long run.
According to him, poverty should not drive the nation to shun its religiosity.
“At any point in time when these buildings were built in Europe, was it ever the right time? How do we fund it will become the question. Is the executive mindful of the current situation? We shouldn’t snuff out our religiousness or spirituality because we are poor. The Lord will understand if we put our widows mite in there,” he told GTV on Sunday.
He noted the cathedral is not costing the nation as much as has been speculated in the media.
“That question being asked is that are we spending money from state coffers? Is that too much to do because we are politicizing it. Do we really want to stop it? That is going to be my question.
“As a Minister of Finance, we are looking at resources and how much we put in there at every point in time that is sensible and so as we speak, we have spent less than one-thousandth of our expenditure on that,” he said.
He added: “I am very confident of raising revenue to be able to fund this and then more importantly if I want to look into the economics of it, I truly see an overwhelming capacity that this will pay off. Typically, I am looking at an internal rate of return, so we should put this in mind”.
Recent revelation that government has spent about GHC200 million on the cathedral has provoked anger on social media among Ghanaians many of whom have described the project as wasteful.
