‘Let’s self-regulate to check abuse’ – Christian Council

The Christian Council of Ghana wants the activities of churches in the country to be regulated.

The Council wants churches to check the increasing spate of abuse in the church by persons parading as men of God and their churches.

Speaking at the 2018 Synod of the Global Evangelical in Accra, General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, Cyril Fayose said the Council will push for some form of self-regulation.

“I have been involved in extreme and abusive practices in their churches. Reverend Chair, a conversation on the need for religious regulations in our country is therefore inevitable. The church must step up discussions on how to regulate the establishment and activities of churches in order to drastically reduce the abominable practices in our churches. Some time ago, the government of the day tried to regulate church activities, and the Christian Council and other Councils stood vehemently against it. But I think it is about time we do some self-regulation ourselves. The Council must all come together, and we must rope in everyone and let us make some regulation.

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“The time has come for us to call for a consensus building on the issue of religious regulation in the country. It is time to take the proactive action needed to sanitize the church and rid it of heretical and abominable practices. If you want to be a lawyer, the bar association has to certify you, and you must be trained for a number of years. If you want to be a medical doctor, you have to go through training. Why is it that if you want to be a pastor, sometimes people just get up, wear a collar and say they are pastors and do all kinds of things in the name of the church.”

The Council also commended the Bank of Ghana for its decision to consolidate five banks and called for the arrest and prosecution of managers whose actions and inaction resulted in the takeover.

“The Christian Council wants to commend the governor of the Bank of Ghana and his team for exposing the rot in the banking system in Ghana and for actually closing down seven of the banks. We also want to place on record that the Christian Council of Ghana thinks that all those who are culpable in this matter, be they staff of the bank of Ghana or directors of the closed banks should be prosecuted.

“They should face the full rigors of the law as much as possible because the amount of money we hear has gone into this bailing out of these banks is enough to do a lot of social interventions in our country.

The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison had earlier announced that it had revoked the licenses of five banks; Sovereign bank, Beige Bank, Construction Bank, Royal Bank and uniBank.

Read: Banks collapse: BoG failed in supervision – Economist

He said the banks had committed various offenses against the country’s banking laws including obtaining their licenses through false pretenses.

The governor said the five had therefore been collapsed into a new bank; the Consolidated Bank of Ghana and deposits of the collapsed banks had been transferred to the Consolidated Bank.

Source: citinewsroom.com