Ghana wanted a cathedral. She got a “expensive hole” instead.

The walls surrounding Ghana National Cathedral are plywood. Its towers are yellow construction cranes, which have not moved for years. Often the singing-the choir of frogs that move whenever the founder’s foundations are filled with rain water.

Former Ghana President, Nana Akovo Adodo, spent about $ 58 million of public funds on the Cathedral project of $ 400 million-a large amount in the country of West Africa covered with debt. The new Finance Minister said in March that Ghana’s economy was “severe distress.”

The cathedral was designed by famous architect David Adjay. But behind the charts, there is very little to show money.

“They dug a hole – a great hole,” said Chounedu, a student and a Christian of Pentecost, last month.

The Bible was well designed under his arm, and he was leaving the morning service in Pure Fire Miracles on a street with the church pioneers, ice cream sellers and children linking. His brother John, who used to buy fat oil, ascended. He said: “God will not be happy.”

Throughout Accra, the coastal capital in Ghana, citizens are permissible that the hole is the largest and most expensive in the world. The extension of the value of the lands surrounded by museums, the bank’s headquarters and some of the most Ghana hotels in the government buildings of the church have been cleared. This earth is now thick with vegetation and bird life, only visited by scrap metal thieves, and sometimes in the rainy season, Swimmer Graduating the exciting business of social media.

Non -built cathedral It has become a symbol of the economic administration and the political battlefield after Mr. Akovo Adodo said that its construction was to fulfill a personal pledge to God.

Now that Mr. Akufo-Eddo has left his position, the project appears to be permanently governed.

The cathedral is now a major goal for the new government anti -corruption initiative, which is called the process of recovering each looting. Last month, the government announced that it would not finance the project and resolve the agency responsible for its management.

Africa is home to the largest Christian population in the world. Ghana, where faith is especially important YouthI witnessed a modern boom in the church building.

But the National Cathedral project has never attracted Mr. Akovo Ado’s support. Instead, the construction stopped in its foundations as Ghana suffered from the worst economic crisis in one generation.

For many Ghanaians recently, the cathedral seemed to be the last thing the country needs, especially at an estimated cost of about $ 400 million.

The project started with a lot of noise. In 2019, at a dinner for money raising in Washington, Mr. Akovo Adw is smiling at large gray sweets-planned Catacteis It was presented in the cake. With a 5000 seat hall and a concave roof indicating the Asante Royal stool curve, it was supposed to be much more than just a cathedral. It was supposed to be a national monument, similar to Washington National Cathedral or Cathedral Westminster in London. The place where the state’s ceremonies – such as the funerals of the presidents and royal wedding parties will occur.

Mr. Akovo Ado, who was born in the Al -Shayghiya family, told Anglican when he was a young man, gathered in Washington that the cathedral among the sects would be unified for Ghanaian Christians, who represent more than 70 percent of the population. He said he would be a offer, thanks to God for sparing the country from epidemics, civil wars, and the families of its neighbors.

But he revealed after that A third reason for its construction.

“I pledged to God that if the president – after two attempts, I am not successful – in the 2016 presidential elections, I will build a cathedral for the glory of God,” he said, according to the official readings of the event.

It turned out that the statement is a gift for the opponents of Mr. Akovo Ado, who argued that the president should not be allowed to use public funds as part of a personal deal he made with God-let alone $ 58 million of it.

Paul Obooko Minsah, the agency’s executive director who supervises the project, said that the cathedral of the cathedral soon became a “political strategy”.

In March 2024, a member of Parliament, Samuel Okudzito, led Appleakua, a He walks To the construction site, cut the red strip at a gate to enjoy the president to assign what was still a giant hole.

“We are demanding that contracts be terminated immediately to avoid more financial losses for the state,” he said.

If the Cathedral’s use of the president targeting a political strategy, it has succeeded. John Mahama, the former president, promised to create job opportunities and reform the economy, started from dramatic counting In the December elections. Mr. Okudzito has made his foreign minister.

Corruption accusations often occupy the position of the lead in the Ghanaian elections, and the large amounts participating in the National Cathedral project have persuaded many Ghanaians that officials were moving at the top. The Secretary General of the Public Grievances said that the rules of purchases have ended Improved Forensic Medicine Review.

But in an interview with The Big Hole in early April, Mr. Opoku-Mensah said he has nothing to hide and hand all the accounts to the investigators.

He explained that the cathedral was not really intended as a church, but as a major monument that needed state funds to start, but it would eventually become a magnet to achieve profits for visitors.

“It is a basic misunderstanding of the vision,” he said.

Mr. Akovo Adodo also seemed to be surrounded by controversy. “I find it difficult to see what is a big problem in that,” he said in an interview with him in April in his lining home office. He thought loudly about whether people believed that he “would be very big for my leadership.”

Now that the country’s leaders have changed, a few Ghanaians admit to the support of the cathedral. Those who say to Mr. Akovo Ado and others must the bill-but not taxpayers.

“It should be funded through donations,” said Essa Darko, the architect, as the church left another day in the Arka neighborhood known as the Christian village. “It should not be imposed on everyone because not all of them are Christians.”

There are also about five million Muslims in Ghana, a country of more than 35 million people, and recently, an increasing number of atheists.

“Do not believe in God?” Read a Plate In the middle of Accra. “You are not alone.”

Even prominent Christians have been strained in the project. Upon his arrival at the church he is leading until the last Sunday, the Shahiraa, Lawrence Tité, and his sister, Mrs. Gifte Tité, a British -Ghani lawyer, took a bi -Titi office for an interview.

He said that he initially converted to the cathedral project. He thought that Christians from different sects would be gathered through it, just as with Ghanaian Muslims National MosqueMr. Tete said that he was built by Türkiye in 2021. But when he saw many of the country’s money he spent, he stopped supporting the idea.

“We are a developing nation,” he said. “As it is good to have a edifice, we also don’t want a position as we must eat our edifice to a little nation to live in it.”

Mrs. Titée said that God would understand whether the president has made it clear that he could not fulfill the promise of the cathedral. She said, “God is not difficult tasks.” Perhaps I suggested that the former president can build a small prayer room instead.

Francis Cocot contributed to reporting.