Link to article: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/4/18/cathedral-of-scandals-how-a-presidential-promise-divided-ghana
A new $400m church has become very controversial in Ghana. This new cathedral was built about 700 meters away from Ghana’s parliament. The interdeminational church seeks to unite the Christian community and improve overall social cohesion in Ghana. This cathedral, however, has been stalled due to a lack of funds for the project. The president saw the cathedral as a way to unite the people of Ghana, but it has instead split people into two major groups. Some people see the cathedral as upgrading Ghana’s state infrastructure while others believe that it is a waste of valuable resources that could instead be used to fix Ghana’s economic issues. Ghana is facing one of the world’s worst economic crises and has over 45b in debt.
The cost of living in West Africa has also greatly increased with inflation hitting a record breaking 54 percent in December, which is the highest it has been in 21 years. Rent, fuel, and other costs of transportation has risen and about a quarter of Ghana’s population lives below the poverty line according to the United Nations Development Programme and the Ghana Statistical Services. In my opinion, I do not think Ghana should be building this church given the devastating economic situation and their funds could probably be best used somewhere else to provide better infrastructure and jobs for the public instead. Ghana already has a lot of churches, so I believe that this church is unnecessary for their people in the long run. The initial cost to build this cathedral was originally 100m, but inflation has quadrupled the cost of this cathedral, and has upset many Ghanaians.
Ghana’s parliament blocked a budget allocation of $6.3m for the government to be able to continue the project even though Ghana is struggling to restructure its debt in order to qualify for a $3b loan from the International Monetary Fund. The IMF monitors international money and global economic developments and identify risks and comes up solutions for financial issues. They get their funding from bilateral and multilateral agreements. The member states of the IMF also contributes funds and countries are able to take loans from the IMF for economic development. A member states’ contributions also reflect the size and position of the country in comparison to the rest of the world.