Regulating Activities of Churches: Let’s Go The Rwandan Way – Bernard Oduro Takyi
Chartered Economist and a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Bernard Oduro Takyi has backed calls for stringent rules and regulations to be enacted to regulate the activities of churches in the country.
According to Bernard Oduro Takyi, it is high time Ghana considered emulating Rwanda in dealing with the management of religious activities following the numerous scams, chaos, confusion and atrocities perpetuated by some churches.
The chartered economist made this recommendation when he was speaking on Spotlight with Nuong Faalong on Mx 24 TV following the arrest of self-styled Evangelist Patricia Oduro, widely known as Nana Agradaa over allegations of scamming her church members.
Justifying his recommendation, Bernard Oduro Takyi contended that the activities of some unregulated churches in the country are negatively impacting the economy by contributing to demand pull inflation. According to him, since the finances of these churches are not regulated, they have the liberty of depositing their offertories in offshore accounts hence negatively affecting the stability of the local currency.
He further noted that some of these churches are the reason for the generally low productivity in the country. He explains that these churches take too much time from the congregants through their numerous church programs thereby making them lazy.
To curb these and many other disadvantages of some churches in the country, Bernard Oduro Takyi is urging government to crack the whip and implement robust systems to regulate the activities of churches as done by Rwanda.
“When you go to Europe, Asia etc, people wake up from Monday to Friday, and they are thinking of going to job, they are thinking of employability. Come to Ghana, from Monday to Sunday, its all about tongues. It is as if Ghanaians know God than any other continent. Let me take you to China, China is spiritual but not too religious but in Ghana we have all the Christians holding key positions but the corruption we see every day, where does it come from?”, he quizzed.
He added that “most of these state actors know what to do but decide not to do and when some of these things happen, they put in place this kind of reactionary knee jerk approach to create the impression. I will recommend that let’s go the way of Rwanda, let us crack the whip.”
“If we can enact laws and regulations to regulate the business community, educational community, why can’t we as a nation say that through the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, let us put in place stringent and robust regulations to say that if you want to set up a church, these are the ways to go. I am not sure that Ghana is closer to God than Chinese is, “Bernard Oduro Takyi concluded.
