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Flaunting of wealth fuels corruption in Ghana's
churches
Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot
Accra, April 10, 2009 - Some
religious leaders who attended a two-day workshop on "Zero
tolerance against corruption, the role of religious bodies
in Ghana" in Takoradi, the Western Regional capital have
admitted that there is serious corruption within the
churches.
Speaking at the workshop organised by the Ghana Integrity
Initiative (GII), the local chapter of the Transparency
International the religious leaders from the Anglican,
Catholic, and Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission identified greed,
selfishness, envy, opulence, flagrant flaunting of wealth as
some of the drivers of corruption in the churches.
They said that, the activities of these leaders were fed by
and thrived on corruption.
Rt Rev Col (Rtd) John K. Otoo, the Anglican Bishop for the
Sekondi-Takoradi Diocese, who delivered the keynote address,
expressed his indignation about the speed and manner with
which new churches were springing up every corridors of the
country.
"In the Christian community today, people are breaking away
and are forming new churches, but they are cheating the
world," he observed.
Some of these new church leaders, Bishop Otoo said, hire
"macho" men, ride in good cars, visiting impunity on their
members.
"But they have people to support them," he said.
The new churches, he said,
that were being formed
derived their teaching from the Bible, but the abuse was not
restricted to Christianity alone. Break away mosques,
he claimed, were being formed within the Muslim community
too.
"Even the SDAs have four now," Bishop Otoo told the
participants.
"We want it for ourselves - cars and buildings, selfishness
is killing all of us because we want to gain from where we
have not sown," he said.
The Anglican Bishop noted that the new churches were not
teaching people to work hard and harvest their sweat but
only talked about blessings.
"People just clap and they don't ask what their money is
used for; they are afraid to speak the truth because of fear
of reprisals."
Religious leaders, he said, should lead the people to the
path of righteousness and friendship based on true faith
adding "we must be the voice and lead the people from
darkness to the light.
"We must go beyond this life, for we have a responsibility
on our hands and we must wage war
on corruption, impunity, irresponsible behaviours and even
environmental degradation," Bishop Otoo indicated.
He said, Christians and Muslims formed about 80 per cent of
the Ghanaian society and wondered
why corruption still thrived each day.
“People want husbands and visas, but they must learn the
word of God," he told the participants.
Rev Pius Smith Ansah of the AME Zion Church, Sekondi,
observed that some prophets and evangelists were now chasing
people to deliver miracles.
"People go to church without holding the Bible and listen to
anointments for three hours and the word of God for only
five minutes; the word has vanished." he said.
"We need to clean our house and continue to speak about
corruption. The canker repeats itself because of our
apparent silence,” Rev Ansah pointed out.
The Very Rev. Awortwe Dadson, Vicar General of the Catholic
Church described corruption as something that
was rotten, putrefying
and a system that was broken down.
He said that the irony of the religious
situation was that instead
of people shying away from the “rottenness” they
were being attracted to it.
“If it becomes deep-seated it will break down the human
person,” Very Rev. Dadson said.
He called for a corporate approach to fighting corruption.
Form the Islamic point of view,
the Western Regional President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim
Mission, Mr Ayyub Morgan, observed that some groups of
Muslims performed the Hajj because of the
thinking that God would wash away their sins in 40
days.
"And so whatever crime they want to commit, they commit it
in the 40 days.
"One cause of corruption is that some religious leaders are
corrupt. If we want to throw a stone who can throw it?" Mr
Morgan asked."
The programmes Manager of GII, Mrs Linda Ofori Kwafo, said
that a corrupt religious body can never challenge a corrupt
society".
Ghanadot |
