An Editor of The Finder Newspaper, Mr. Elvis Darko, has warned that Ghana is setting a bad precedence with how government is partly funding a religious project with public funds.
“We are using public funds to build a place that has a religious tag attached to it. A place of worship in a circular state. We are are setting a bad precedence that if we are careful can really hurt us in the future”.
Mr. Elvis believes this single act will open the flood gates for other religious enthusiasts to push their religious when they enter into office in the future.
“If we set the precedence of letting public funds build this one, who is going to say that public funds should not be allowed to build a shrine worth $5 billion, who? Because we have set the precedence of putting public funds into it(National Cathedral)”
“We have a Muslim President tomorrow and he says we do hajj and go to Mecca and the rest, we think that Ghana should have the biggest Mosque in West Africa or Africa, so I also want to spend $10 billion to build it. We have set the precedence of funding a National Cathedral and that will open the flood for anybody that comes. A Hindu, a Shintoist or whatever comes and says I promised my God that when I win elections, I will do something for my Religion and therefore I am doing it. That is the precedence I believe we should not be settings a country”, the Editor added.
Speaking on the Big Issue over the weekend, Mr, Elvis was not opposed to the building of the Cathedral if the funds are from private persons or organisations for which he made reference to the Kabila and the State case on the Cathedral.
“If you read the Supreme Court ruling about the Kabila case, the Supreme Court took the view that the state have said that its contribution to the project is land, and the Supreme took the view that if the State is providing land, that should not be an issue. Now we have gone beyond land and are now putting resources (funds) into it”.
For him the economic benefits argument the Government in power is making about the Cathedral does not hold water.
“Houphouët-Boigny built the Balica in Ivory Coast. He says he wants to beat what is in Rome. Go and check the Bacilica in Ivory Coats today and find out how much it generates for the State” Mr. Darko pointed to.
And he added that: “You see, tourists travel to go and see unique things, they don’t travel to go and see things that somebody has replicated. Uniqueness is what is important. Ghana’s Cathedral can never be bigger than the Washington Cathedral. It is not going to be bigger than what is in Rome. And therefore to tell me that we are building a Cathedral in Ghana for tourism purposes, unfortunately it does not make the argument. I think that the economic argument of people will come see Ghana’s Cathedral, what is unique about Ghana’s Cathedral?
Moving on, Mr. Elvis Darko stands by the fact that “We have significant things that would bring tourists to Ghana and not the Cathedral. He believes the ‘role Ghana played in the trans-atlantic slave trade’ could be a great be a great revenue creation tool for the State bigger than what the Cathedral may give the country. He alluded to the ‘Year Of Return’ Intiative.
“Just take a look at the Year Of Return, the people who came, why do you think they came here? To check their ancestral root. They want to check the role of Slavery, how they ended up where they are; how did it all started”.
Mr Elvis went on to lament on how the State has for a long time neglected the many tourists sites and its amenities that makes those sites thrive.
“We have very great tourist sites in Ghana where people from abroad want to go to. But you go there and roads are bad, network is very poor. You can’t even stay there because you can not contact your family. Connectivity in terms of telecommunications are very bad. There is not place for people where they can say they have accommodation to spend one week there. Now tourists are spending all their days in Accra”.
The Editor for The Finder Newspaper pointed to the fact that there are better tourist attractions in the country than the Cathedral but there are challenges which are making it difficult to attract tourists to those places. For that matter the investment should be put into making these places attractive for for tourists.
