A number of religious leaders who attended a two-day workshop on "Zero tolerance against corruption, the role of religious bodies in Ghana" at Takoradi have admitted that there is serious corruption within the churches. Speaking at the workshop organised by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the religious leaders from the Anglican, Catholic, and Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission identified greed, selfishness, envy, opulence, flagrant flaunting of wealth as some of the drivers at the wheels of corruption in the churches. They said that, the activities of these leaders were fed by and thrived on corruption. Rt Rev Col (Rtd) John K. Otoo, the Anglican Bishop for the Sekondi-Takoradi Diocese, who delivered the keynote address, expressed his indignation about the speed and manner with which new churches were springing up. "In the Christian community today, people are breaking away and are forming new churches, but they are cheating the world," he observed. Some of these new church leaders, Bishop Otoo said, hire "macho" men, ride in good cars, visiting impunity on their members. "But they have people to support them," he said. The churches, he said, were being formed based on the Bible, adding that, the Muslims were also doing the same. "Even the SDAs have four now," Bishop Otoo told the participants. "We want it for ourselves - cars and buildings, selfishness is killing all of us because we want to gain from where we have not sown," he said. The Anglican Bishop said the new churches were not teaching people to work hard and harvest their sweat but only talked about blessings. "People just clap and they don't ask what their money is used for; they are afraid to speak the truth because of fear of reprisals." Religious leaders, he said, should lead the people to the path of righteousness and friendship based on true faith adding "we must be the voice and lead the people from darkness to the light. "We must go beyond this life, for we have a responsibility on our hands and we must wage a war on corruption, impunity, irresponsible behaviours and even environmental degradation," Bishop Otoo said. He said, Christians and Muslims formed about 80 per cent of society and wondered why corruption thrived each day. “People want husbands and visas, but they must learn the word of God," he told the participants. Rev Pius Smith Ansah of the AME Zion Church, Sekondi, observed that some prophets and evangelists were now chasing people to deliver miracles. "People go to church without holding the Bible and listen to anointments for three hours and the word of God for only five minutes; the word has vanished." he said. "We need to clean our house and continue to speak about corruption. The canker repeats itself because of our apparent silence,” Rev Ansah pointed out. The Very Rev. Awortwe Dadson, Vicar General of the Catholic Church described corruption as something that is rotten, putrefying and a system that is broken down. He said that the irony of today's situation is that instead of people shying away from the “rottenness” they are attracted to it. “If it becomes deep-seated it will break down the human person,” Very Rev. Dadson said. He called for a corporate approach to fighting corruption. On Islam, the Western Regional President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Mr Ayyub Morgan, observed that some groups of Muslims performed the Hajj so that God will wash away their sins in 40 days. "And so whatever crime they want to commit, they commit it in the 40 days. "One cause of corruption is that some religious leaders are corrupt. If we want to throw a stone who can throw it?" Mr Morgan asked." The programmes Manager of GII, Mrs Linda Ofori Kwafo, said that a corrupt religious body can never challenge a corrupt society". Source: The Spectator