National Cathedral: John Kumah defends payment of GHS32m to David Adjaye

He said the amount has already been budgeted for therefore it is appropriate to pay.

Speaking on Accra based Citi TV, John Kumah said the hullabaloo on the payment is much ado about nothing.

Mr. Kumah said the government had given enough clarity on state funding of the cathedral.

“Even though it may not be captured as a budget item because it is not under any specific MDA, it can form part of government expenditure as long as we have captured in the budget that we were going to provide seed funding,” he explained.

“It is already a budget item provided for in the [office of the president] budget that was used for that purpose, which is legal,” he added.

In Mr. Kumah’s view, a line item is not necessary “if it is one of the priorities under a specific item which is already provided.”

“You just need to talk about it, as we have done,” he added.

John Kumah Pulse Ghana

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa revealed that the government paid Adjaye and Associates a whopping GHS32 million for consultancy.

The NDC lawmaker shared a document indicating the payment and the alleged work done.

“Documents from the Office of the President confirm that in 2021 alone, Prez Akufo-Addo authorised an astonishing GHC32million of taxpayer funds to be paid to Sir David Adjaye & Associates Ltd for consultancy on his National Cathedral project”, he wrote.

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa also leaked a letter authorizing payment of GHS25 million from the Ministry of Finance as seed money for the cathedral earlier in the week.