The General Overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Pastor Mensa Otabil, has attributed Ghana’s slow pace of development - despite its numerous resources- to the absence of trust and integrity among citizens.

"Ghana needs integrity. We need it. And we need it not from our leaders, we need it from every citizen", he said.

Pastor Otabil was speaking at the Grand Convocation of the 2015 edition of the human development event, Springboard, organised by Legacy and Legacy in Accra.

The preacher and motivational speaker also said trust is the product of integrity which must be built into a character.

"Image is great but character is always greater than image, because if you put a white shirt on a pig - its character is a pig its image is a white shirt - and you leave that pig long enough and go to inspect the white shirt its character would have transformed the image because it will go and soil the white shirt. Your character is who you always are. Your image is how you present yourself", Paster Otabil said.

He said it was important for people to align their character, image and reputation in order to have integrity.

However, despite Ghana's challenges, he said the country still has hope because the younger generation can make a change.

"When I was young I believed Ghana would be great. As I get older I pray Ghana would be great, I pray so because we keep disappointing ourselves. We have the great opportunities and we disappoint ourselves. We had gold, we disappointed ourselves. We had cocoa we disappointed ourselves. We have oil we are disappointing ourselves. But there is hope for the future, because there are young men and women, who hopefully, will build a better life".

The Grand Convocation was attended by more than one thousand people, predominantly the youth.