The path being charted by politicians is the reason corruption has engulfed the nation, founder of the Perez Chapel International, Archbishop Charles Agyin-Asare, has noted.
Considering the rate at which politicians acquire wealth within a short period, the Archbishop says others who are in other professions tend to adopt every means, including illegitimate ones, to survive.
He, therefore, attributed the problem to leadership saying “all things rise and fall with leadership.”
When asked “why are Ghanaians corrupt?”, he said “we have taught people that…because if somebody goes into political office, he doesn’t have a house and in four years, he has 3 houses. The ordinary guy who sits in the office, the teacher, who has also worked ten years also has to find a way to survive. The policeman also feels that he has to do something to survive,” he told Captain Smart on Maakye Wednesday, January 17, 2024, on Onua TV/FM.
Using a case study from Gambia, the preacher admonished Ghanaian leaders to cultivate the habit of selflessness and prioritise the interest of the state in order to ameliorate the canker.
“There was this parliamentarian in Gambia, a lady. They increased the salaries of parliamentarians and the president and the Speaker. She came and said that it is an insult because how could they increase their salary by sixty something per cent when the ordinary man [has not had any increment] so she wouldn’t take it and she rejected [it]. So, when we have leaders like that, if we have people who are selfless and they are looking at the nation in terms of lifting up the ordinary person, things will change,” he stressed.
“Over the years when government even built the affordable housing and things, before you realised, government themselves, people have six of them and eight of them. So everybody thinks that we have to get to politics and that is where we are now,” he added.
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Aside from corruption, he also shared his view on what is destroying Ghana which he said could become devastating if care is not taken.
“We have divided the nation on political lines. We are one people so we should stop [creating divisions among ourselves]. I think the political class enjoy doing that because they are not enemies.”
According to the Archbishop, what changed his perception about politicians and their tactics of acting as enemies before the public is an experience he had with them about two decades ago on a flight where they expressed amity instead of the enmity they have always portrayed.
“I travelled with some politicians 15 – 20 years ago. We went to East Africa. I went to preach there and we went together. And on the flight, they were chatting, –opposition [and government in power]. I used to think they were enemies because that’s what they portray to us.
“We stayed in the same hotel, we went to eat lunch together, they were drinking tea together so I came back and I even accosted them and said why do you make it look like we are enemies? Why don’t you show this side you’re showing, [and] they just laughed. But I think that the more they do that, the more they are able to keep us down and make sure that we don’t say what they are doing,” he pointed out.
