How can you beg Chinese for help after using $400 million to dig a hole-CDD fellow to Akufo-Addo

Pharmacist and Democracy and Development (D&D) Fellow in Public Health at the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) Dr Kwame Sarpong Asiedu has questioned the rationale behind using hundreds of millions of Cedis to dig the foundation of a National Cathedral only to turn round and seek support for a debt restructuring programme from China through Germany.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last Friday appealed to Germany through her Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, to talk to China, to lend support to Ghana’s debt restructuring programme so as to enable Ghana meet conditionalities and secure a much-needed International Monetary Fund (IMF)bailout to save its struggling economy from total collapse.

But Mr Kwame Sarpong who is of the opinion that Ghana’s economy challenges are largely self-inflicted through bad leadership, corruption and wastage, wondered why the President would not first let the Ghanaian people know whether or not the money expended on the digging of the National Cathedral’s foundation was part of Ghana’s for which China needs to intervene.



“I am sitting here wondering, how the man who took GHC400 million of our money to dig this hole can have the temerity to plead with the Germans to speak to the Chinese to help us restructure our debt? Can he first let us know if the money used for digging this hole is part of our debt?” He quizzed.

Ghana’s huge public sector debt became unsustainable and got it downgraded by rating agencies, shutting it out of the bond market and other creditors. This development has forced the Government to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund so as to deal with balance of payment challenges.

To make the debt sustainable so as to be able to borrow from the International market, Government has been forced to embark on a debt restructuring programme. But creditor nations such as China and others must agree to it. A refusal could throw the country into further economic jeopardy.

Many have argued that the current Government’s excessive appetite for borrowing to finance fancy, economically not viable projects such the National Cathedral is to blame for the current economic difficulties