The Catholic Bishops Conference – a grouping of senior clergymen within the Catholic Church in Ghana – has condemned the attitude of Ghanaians to work.

It said some Ghanaians laze about at work, something the group described as a social sin.

In its New Year message, the Conference said demanding hard work from government alone is not enough to bring prosperity to the country; workers must also give off their best.

President of the Conference, Most Rev. Joseph Osei-Bonsu told Joy News anything short of hard work on the part of the citizenry is a grave sin.

“I will say government should do its best to ensure that the economy is on a sound footing; it should put in place policies that will improve the economy, but on the part of the people as a whole, we need to work hard because quite often people don’t work hard, they go to work and laze about the workplace and so on, so we need to be able to put a lot of hard work so that the economy will improve,” he said.

Most Rev. Osei-Bonsu asserted, “It is ok accusing government of, maybe, not doing its part but if we don’t do our part then we are also guilty.”

Catholic Bishops Conference is also asking Ghanaians to cultivate a spirit of forgiveness and  avoid taking part in the widespread practice of invoking curses at shrines like that of Antoa in the Ashanti Region or of Nogokpo in the Volta Region to kill those who have wronged them.