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Need for Government to partner
churches to improve on moral decay - Moderator
Accra, March 01, GNA – Right-Reverend Dr Yaw Frimpong Manso,
Moderator of the General Assembly of Presbyterian Church of
Ghana (PCG) on Wednesday called on the Government to partner
the churches to improve on the moral decay in the country
especially among the youth.
In addition, he appealed to Government to harness the
expertise of Ghanaian Engineers to find alternative sources
of energy by the use of local materials such as saw dust and
waste plastic products for effective socio-economic and
industrial development as well as domestic use.
Rt-Rev. Frimpong Manso made the call at a lecture organised
by the Presbyterian Church of Ghana to commemorate Ghana's
Golden Jubilee celebration in Accra.
It was on the theme "The role of the Presbyterian Church of
Ghana to National Development - Pre and Post Independence
Era.”
The Moderator of the General Assembly of PCG said the church
had taken a serious interest in the celebration because, the
church played a great role in the attainment of independence
and continued to provide a holistic ministry in the areas of
spirituality sound moral principles and social services for
the effective and efficient development of the country.
He said the church had contributed to the human resource
development by training people for leadership positions in
the country including Heads of State and leaders in the
civil service and other vital sectors of national
development.
Rt-Rev. Frimpong Manso said the challenges facing the church
was the choice of either running its social institutions as
either profit making or non profit making.
Others he said, were the deteriorating state of most of
their institutions and schools in the country that required
massive re-capitalization and new paradigm shift on the need
to re-examine the issue as to whether the state should not
handover the church’s institutions and schools to them for
effective management.
“If this is done the churches could have full control over
them and be able to instil full discipline into their
institutional structures, “he added.
Rt-Rev. Frimpong Manso on behalf of the church, commended
the Executive and
Parliament for passing the Domestic Violence Bill(DVB) into
law.
However, he said the important thing was for Ghanaians to
sustain the society within the next 50 years with strict
discipline, hard work, honesty and the fear of God.
Mr Stephen Asamoah-Boateng, Minister for Local Government,
Rural Development and Environment in an address read on his
behalf attributed Ghana’s inability to achieve accelerated
socio-economic development to lack of unity and
collaboration due to leadership crises that had affected the
country in the last few decades.
"As leaders whatever we do or say exerts a lot of influence
on the masses therefore, we must always seek to exert the
right kind of influence for the people to emulate," he
added.
Mr Asamoah-Boateng, noted that the history of Ghana's
Independence and development could not be complete without
the contributions of Presbyterian Church of Ghana to the
social and economic enhancement of the country.
He said the church, since its establishment in 1828, had
provided quality social infrastructure especially in the
provision of schools, hospitals, clinics and agricultural
stations that had uplifted the social status of most
Ghanaians and also helped to improve the manpower base of
the nation.
Mr Asamoah-Boateng regretted that most of the facilities
bequeathed to the church by the missionaries had not been
well maintained and called on the church to establish a
business development unit to advise it on project management
and implementation.
Rev. Dr Abraham Akrong, a Research Fellow at University of
Ghana, Legon, said available evidence indicated that cocoa
was first brought into the country by the Basel Missionaries
and not Tetteh Quarshie.
He called for more research into the issue to set the record
straight.
GNA
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