National Cathedral: Opoku Onyinah explains the main reason Dag Heward-Mills resigned

The Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Cathedral of Ghana, Apostle Prof. Opoku Onyinah, has for the first time spoken about the resignation of a member of the board, Dag Heward-Mills.

According to Apostle Onyinah, Heward-Mills, the founder and presiding bishop of the United Denominations Originating from the Lighthouse Group of Churches UD-OLGC, formerly Lighthouse Chapel International), resigned basically because he didn’t have the time to be fully involved in the work of the board.

He also said that Heward-Mills resigned because he felt his presence might hamper the construction of the cathedral which he was in full support of.

The chairman, who made these remarks in an Okay FM interview, monitored by GhanaWeb, added that some of the issues that the founder of UD-OLGC raised had been addressed but because he did not attend the meeting of the board frequently, he did not know about them.

“He (Dag) only got time to come for meetings only during the time of the (COVID-19) lockdown. So, there are some things that we had taken decisions on that he thought had not been handled.

“In last year August, Dag raised the issue of resigning because he was not happy with certain things. So, myself, the director (of the cathedral secretariat) and some of the trustees went to see him.

“And what he indicated to us was that because of the lack of time and his position on certain issues, he felt that stepping down will be good for the project,” he said,

Apostle Onyinah, who is the former chairman of the Church of Pentecost, reiterated that Heward-Mills is in full support of the construction of the National Cathedral of Ghana and that he only resigned from the board of trustee because he felt that was the best thing to do.

Background:

Dag Heward-Mills, is reported to have said that questions being raised by Ghanaians on the construction of the National Cathedral of Ghana are legitimate.

According to him, the public have the right to ask questions about the project because, 6 years after the construction of the project started and after using $30 million of public funds, they can only see a huge pit in the centre of Accra, citinewroom.com reports.

Heward-Mills, who is reported to have made these remarks in a letter he wrote to the Board of Trustees and Executive Director of the National Cathedral, added that Ghanaians deserve some answers to the questions they have raised.

“I am a firm believer in the president’s vision. I believe that the public can see and is questioning the fact that we have spent almost six years since the sod-cutting of this project as well as over $30m (thirty million dollars) of public funds, to excavate a massive pit in the centre of the city.

“I do believe that many of the questions that are being asked and hurled at the National Cathedral Project are reasonable and legitimate questions by objective citizens who just want answers to their questions,” parts of the letter is quoted by citinewsroom.com.

The pastor also raised some concerns about payments made to stakeholders involved in the cathedral project.

“Continuing to pay contractors $40,000 (forty thousand dollars) a month as we wait to procure a huge loan in this hostile atmosphere sounds dicey to me. I do believe that almost six years down the line, we need to look at a different approach to achieve our goal of building God’s house in Ghana,” he said.

Watch the interview below:



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