GHS 450m spent so far in the construction of the National Cathedral – Finance Ministry
According to the Ministry for Finance, a little over GHS 450m has so far been spent in the construction of the National Cathedral.
The aforementioned amount was disclosed in a document from the Ministry to the Parliamentary Adhoc Committee setup for the censure hearing of the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
The document was made available on the request of the Adhoc Committee.
The Ministry in the said document revealed that, an amount of GHS 339,003,064.86 had been released for the construction of the National Cathedral, whereas a total amount of GHS 113,040,654.86 had been paid to the consulting firm for the construction of the Cathedral, Messers Sir David Adjaye and Associates.
According to the Ministry, the latest amount spent was some GHS 25 million in March 2022, which was Government’s contribution to the construction of the National Cathedral.
Another issue that the document from the Ministry sought to give clarity to, was the total energy sector payments to IPPs as well as total debts accumulated in the energy sector as at the end of the 2020 fiscal year.
According to the Ministry, a total amount of GHS 17.3 billion was paid to IPPs from 2017 to 2020.
The IPPs that received payments include; Karpower, Cenpower, Amandi Energy, Sunon Asogli, Ameri Energy and AKSA.
Of the total amount, GHS 10 billion was paid as a shortfall in capacity and GHS 4.99 billion was used as excess capacity payments while the remaining GHS 7.3 billion was used for payments to fuel suppliers for the period mentioned.
For this year alone, debts in the energy sector is projected by ACEP to increase to some $1.3bn by end-2022.