Head Pastor Mount Herob Victorious Church Rev. Benjamin Oppong has questioned senior Presidential Advisor to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Yaw Osafo-Marfo’s advice to the president about the fight against corruption rather than blaming the church on the government’s failure to fight corruption in the country.
Speaking to Rev. Benjamin Oppong on Plan B FM’s late afternoon show EBAANOSEN, he told Ohene Kinnah that, the church is not controlling the affairs of the government and the church has no prosecutorial powers to prosecute corrupt government officials.
“He Osafo Marfo as senior presidential advisor to the president, what has he done about the rampant occurrences of corruption in their administration, what advice has he given to the president about his appointees accused of corruption, how come people are calling the president ‘clearing agent’, were you not there when people at the presidency were accused of corruption, does the church controls OSP, CHRAJ, and other anti-corruption agencies if all these are been controlled by”?. He quizzed
He said some men of God are been tagged with political colors when they speak about the wrongdoings and corruption in their administration, and some men of God are being hated, insulted, and threatened by politicians for speaking about corruption in their government so why are you blaming the church?
The government must strengthen the institutions responsible for corruption and fight to prosecute corrupt officials to serve as a deterrent to others, he added.
This was in reaction to the senior Presidential Advisor to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Yaw Osafo-Marfo saying that corruption is growing from bad to worse in the country.
According to him, the Church must play a crucial role in combating corruption in the country.
Addressing the 23rd General Meeting of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana at Kwahu Abetifi in the Eastern Region, over the weekend, the former Finance, and Education Minister questioned how we defend the Christian faith when 70 percent of all monies siphoned illegally from the public purse every year were stolen by Christians.
“If there is that much decay in our body politics, the Christian community has a role to play. 70% of the population is Christianity so what kind of message do we continuously give to that population of the country, what kind of moral lesson are we able to put through this huge percentage? If we are not able to do anything to make certain changes then Christianity itself has a problem in terms of making our words work,” he stated
Osafo-Marfo added: “I think we need to go back and visit the drawing board to see what we should do as a Christian group to influence the behavior of the system, is it that your preaching’s your moral lessons are now not effective? We should ask a few questions, If indeed 70% of us are Christians and corruption begins to go from bad to worse what is happening We need to do some retrospection and as a country together with the government take certain actions to redeem the nation from corruption.”
He also indicated that the high rate of graduate unemployment in Ghana is scary and becoming a national security threat.
He blamed the situation on the education system which has departed from hands-on skills training to theory-based.
He stated that he is not comfortable with how Universities almost universities in Ghana continue to offer humanities courses rather than technical programmes.
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