Rev Dr Joseline Fugar
The endemic corruption in the country signifies the failure of the Church in instilling godly principles in Christians, says the Chairperson of the Kumasi Presbytery of the Global Evangelical Church, Rev Dr Joseline Fugar.
According to the senior cleric, even though majority of the citizens in the country are Christians, Ghana is still embroiled in endemic corruption, which is affecting the country’s progress and development.
Rev Dr Fugar said this at the 2022 Representative Conference of the Church in Kumasi over the weekend.
“It is endemic, and that is the reason why I think that, in a way, we have failed even as a Church. We have failed to bring people the true gospel of Christ, that gospel that transforms human beings, the gospel that transforms them so that their lives are transformed, that they know what is right and what is wrong,” she stated.
Rev Dr Fugar observed that the rate of corruption in the country is killing patriotism among Ghanaians, adding that every Ghanaian is now looking for means to be corrupt.
“Corruption has gone through the whole fibre of society, from the messenger, right through to the head. Everywhere you go, there is a level of corruption. Nobody wants to do anything sacrificially anymore in this nation. It’s always what is it in it for me and that is not going to help us as a nation,” she lamented.
Country first
She stressed the need for Ghanaians to put the country first in all their endeavours. “Ghana needs people who can be loyal to our nation, to put the nation ahead of their own personal interest. That’s what I believe will put the nation forward. Even in Christendom, we are interested much more in ‘what do I get out of this’? ‘If I am a Christian, I am going to church because I believe that a miracle will happen. I will find my healing… I will find this, and I will find that’,” she noted.
She added: “So, we have failed as a church, and I believe that the church should rise up and get back to the old message of repentance and transformation of human lives. It’s then and only then that we can transform this nation as well.”
Digitalisation as weapon
Meanwhile, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia stated last week that the government’s infusion of digitalisation in the provision of government services was beginning to yield major results in the fight against corruption.
Speaking at the 2022 edition of the Annual Conference of the Institute of Internal Auditors (Ghana), he emphasised that Government is “very committed” to the fight against corruption, and would continue to infuse digitalisation into the operations of state institutions to ensure more transparency.
He further indicated that building strong institutions means putting in place the right systems and practices that ensure transparency and bring about efficiency.
“With this, although corruption may remain a chronic disease, transparency will be its vaccine to reduce the rate of spread. As the saying goes, our biggest disease is corruption and the vaccine is transparency. Corrupt people hate transparency,” he said.
Dr Bawumia explained that in the quest to deal ruthlessly with the menace of bribery and corruption, Government had since 2017 ensured the deployment of technology and digitalization, with the twin aim of ensuring easier and affordable access to government services as an anti-corruption strategy.
He drew Ghanaians’ attention as to where the country had reached in its digitalisation process, stressing that “we have made tremendous progress in building the digital infrastructure that serves as the bedrock for our digitalised economy as part of the paradigm shift in our economic transformation”.
“We approached the building of this digital infrastructure on the key pillars of standardising individual identification using the Ghana Card; solving the address and property systems using GhanaPostGPS; solving under-banking and bringing financial inclusion to most people through a robust mobile money and bank interoperability and digital payment platform; and integration of Government Databases and digitising public service delivery using the Ghana.gov platform,” he added.
Citing the massive improvements in revenue mobilisation and performance of Government institutions that had embraced digitalisation, the Vice-President said “even more transparency” is going to be infused in order to “shine a light into the dark recesses of corruption.”
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