The walls around the national cathedral of Ghana are older plywood. The towers are yellow construction cranes, which have not moved in years. It often reflects singing a choir of frogs that comes in when the half-finished foundations of the cathedral fill with rainwater.
The former president of Ghana, Nana Akufo-ADDO, spent around $ 58 million in public money on the $ 400 million Cathedral project-a huge amount in this West African country in the debt. The new finance minister said in March that Ghana’s economy was in ‘serious need’.
The cathedral was designed by the famous architect David Adjaye. But beyond the blueprints there is very little to show for the money.
“They only dug a hole – a big hole,” said Praise Chinedu, a student and a Pentecost Christian last month.
A well -defined Bible under his arm, he came from a morning shift at Pure Fire Miracles Minces on a street that buzzed with churchgoers, ice sellers and screaming children. His brother John, who had bought ointment oil, hurled on the side. “God will not be happy,” he said.
About Accra, the coastal capital of Ghana, the burgers jokes that the gap is the largest and most expensive in the world. A valuable piece of land surrounded by museums, bank headquarters and some of the Ritziest hotels of Ghana was released from government buildings for the church. That country is now thick with vegetation and bird life, not visited, except by scrap with metal thieves and, occasionally in the rainy season, swimmers Staging stunts for social media.
The unsubstantial cathedral became a symbol of economic mismanagement and a political battlefield after Mr Akufo-Addo said that its construction was to fulfill a personal promise he had made to God.
Now that Mr Akufo-Addo has left the office, the project is published permanently.
The cathedral is now an important target of the anti -corruption initiative of the new government, called Operation Recover All Loot. Last month the government announced that it would no longer finance the project and dissolved the agency that is responsible for its management.
Africa is the home of the world’s greatest Christian population. Ghana, where faith is especially important young peoplehas seen a recent tree in the church building.
But the national cathedral project never attracted the support that the Mr. Akufo-Addo had expected. Instead, construction was on its foundations when Ghana suffered his worst economic crisis in a generation of suffering.
For many Ghanaians lately, a cathedral seemed the last thing the country needed, especially one with an estimated cost of $ 400 million.
The project started with a lot of fanfare. In 2019, during a fundraising dinner in Washington, a smiling Mr. Akufo-Addo in a large gray, square clothing-the-planned cathedral displayed in cake. With an auditorium of 5,000 seats and a concave roof that refers to the Curve of Asante Royal Stool, it was intended as much more than just a cathedral. It would be a national monument, similar to the Westminster cathedral in Washington National Cathedral or the London cathedral of Westminster. A place where the solemn state ceremonies – such as funerals of presidents and royal weddings – would take place.
Mr Akufo-Addo, who was born in a Presbyterian family, but when a young man became an Anglican, the Washington group told that the Interdenominational Cathedral would be a unifier for Ghanaian Christians, who represent more than 70 percent of the population. It would also be a sacrifice from God for saving the land from the epidemics, civil wars and famine that had plagued his neighbors, he said.
But then he revealed A third reason for its construction.
“I promised God that if I become the president – after two failed attempts – in the presidential elections of 2016, I will build a cathedral for the glory of God,” he said, according to official readings of the event.
The statement turned out to be a gift for the opponents of Mr Akufo-Addo, who claimed that the president should not use any public money as part of a personal bargain that he has made with God Latat $ 58 million of it.
Paul Opoku-Mensah, the executive director of the agency that supervises the project, said that demonizing the cathedral quickly became ‘a political strategy’.
In March 2024, a member of the Parliament, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, led one March To the construction site, cutting a red ribbon on the gate to puncture the president to set what was still a gigantic hole.
“We demand that the contracts must be terminated immediately to prevent further financial loss for the state,” he said.
If the use of the cathedral to focus on the president was a political strategy, this worked. John Mahama, a former president who promised to create jobs and repair the economy, pulled out a dramatic comeback In the December election. He made Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa his Foreign Minister.
Corruption accusations are often central to Ghanaian elections, and the large amounts involved in the National Cathedral Project convinced many Ghanaians that civil servants had shaken off the top. A public ombudsman said that the purchasing rules had been violated and recommended A forensic audit.
But in an interview from the big gap in early April, Mr. Opoku-Mensah said that he had nothing to hide and had transferred all the bills to the researchers.
He explained that the cathedral was not really intended as a church, but if an important monument that needed state money to start, but in the end would become a profitable magnet for visitors.
“It’s a fundamental misunderstanding about the vision,” he said.
Mr Akufo-Addo also seemed confused about the controversy. “I find it difficult to see what is so problematic about it,” he said in an interview in April in his books surrounded by a lush garden surrounded by books. He mused out loud or people that it would be “too great a tribute to my leadership.”
Now that the leaders of the country have changed, few Ghanaians admit to support the cathedral. Those who say that Mr Akufo-Addo and others have to pay the bill but not taxpayers.
“It must be funded by donations,” said Esi Darko, an architect, when she left the Church on a recent afternoon in a Accra district known as Christian Village. “Not everyone has to be imposed because not everyone is Christians.”
There are also around five million Muslims in Ghana, a country of more than 35 million people, and lately a growing number of atheists.
“Don’t believe in God?” reads one billboard In Central Accra. “You are not alone.”
Even prominent Christians have soured the project. When he arrived in the church, he leads on a recent Sunday, a well -known pastor, Lawrence Tetteh, and his sister Lady Gifty Tetteh, a British Ghanaian lawyer, dived into Mr Tetteh’s office for an interview.
He initially embraced the cathedral project, he said. He thought Christians from different denominations would be brought together, just like Ghanaian Muslims are by the national mosqueBuilt by Turkey in 2021. But when he saw so much state money be issued, Mr Tetteh said, he stopped supporting the idea.
“We are a developing countries,” he said. “As much as it is fun to have a structure, we also do not want a situation where our building will eat in the little one that the nation should live on.”
Mrs Tetteh said that God would understand if the president would explain that he could not live up to his cathedral promise. “God is not a hard taskmaster,” she said. Perhaps she suggested, the former president could build him a small prayer room instead.
Francis Kokutse has contributed reporting.