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A member of the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral Project, Dr Joyce Aryee, has cleared some misconceptions surrounding the National Cathedral Week Celebration held in July.
Her clarification comes after a section of the public asserted that the event observed from July 4 to July 10, 2022, was held purposely to solicit funds for the construction of the US$350 million project.
According to her, the interpretation of the event by the public is not entirely true given the fact that the board needed to embark on an educational programme to enlighten the citizenry on the cathedral.
Dr Aryee maintained that “we will never exhaust the conversation about money because we will continue to solicit funds until we complete the project, and even after that, we will continue to receive them to maintain the edifice. We don’t want the case where we would now solicit funds for its maintenance”.
However, she was quick to add that the programme was geared toward making the church members understand that “it is not solely for money collection that we set aside the one week, but that they will understand such that when they are contributing their quota, they may give benevolently.”
According to the board member who doubles as Appiatse Support Fund Board Chairperson, the programme will be organised every year, “even after the project’s completion because if for nothing at all, there must be a week set aside to pray for the management board, the government among others”.
The National Cathedral Week Celebration
The one-week event entailed showing audio-visuals on the project in churches, prayer sessions, evening services, clean-up exercises, health walks and tree planting while mobilising funds from the churches towards generating at least GH₵100 million monthly for the project.
In her submissions, Dr Aryee noted that the event was successful since a lot of churches have observed it and continue to do the same because “it is about education”.
“In that week we got over 100 churches observing the program and many more are joining the course which is so very good for the cathedral week,” she added.
National Cathedral Project Funding
The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Apostle Professor Opoku Onyinah indicated at the launch of the one-week event that the Cathedral accrued GH₵2.6 million in 2018, 3.6 million in 2019, 13.9 million in 2020, 7.7 million in 2021 and 3.6 million in the first half of 2022, totalling GH₵31,747,989.16.
He thus urged the public particularly Christians to contribute their quota to the development noting that “there is no money lurking somewhere for the construction of the Cathedral, so if churches don’t support we cannot build it.”
He noted the importance of contributing to the construction of the cathedral saying the cathedral has the potential of drawing the world to Ghana to experience the spirituality of God.
“We appeal to leaders of the churches in Ghana not to forget the purpose of the cathedral and stand up to the challenge without running away from supporting the project,” he added.
