Not Surprising

Rev Kwabena Opuni Frimpong
The Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) was definitely unsurprised when the ruling party's attack hounds descended on it following the release of its plaintive communiqué.

The Church as an institution in direct contact with the people, should not fold its arms as things fall apart in the country. This is what the umbrella organisation encompassing over a dozen of churches did through the communiqué   which has ruffled the feathers of party chieftains.

The CCG would be acting irresponsibly when it turns its attention away from the bad governance in which the country is enmeshed today, especially as this impacts negatively on its congregation.

Intolerant as it is, the NDC administration will not hesitate to heap invectives on anybody or organisations which point at the bad governance manifesting in all facets of officialdom.

The communiqué the Council released was a welcome development and should have come much earlier. Better late than never anyway. We congratulate the Council for showing concern about the environment in which its congregations live and work, enduring all the fallouts of bad governance such as cholera.

The priests who preside over the churches are not exaggerating their observations about the Ghanaian story. They listen to the varied stories distressed church people tell them and feel the hard times too. Their privileged positions place them in a better position to gauge the mood of the people and, above all, their level of confidence in the government than many others.

It is this observation about a fallen confidence level which provoked the attack hounds to go on rampage against the church. Asking the church to discuss cholera and leave issues about governance to others is an indication about the limitedness of knowledge of those advancing such arguments.

We do not harbour any shred of doubt that the Council was constraint to issue the communiqué which, besides containing the challenges confronting the country, implored the government to rethink its way of running the affairs of the country.

In an unnecessary rebuttal, the government hounds found nothing unusual about the state of the country—something we find not only insulting but absurd.

We have stated it before that Ghanaians have never been so consistent in their condemnation of the mismanagement of the economy and the resultant repercussions.

The so-called projects which the hounds point at as evidence of the good performance of government cannot pass muster.

Of what good are policies which do not translate into enhanced living standards of the people they are ostensibly intended to serve?

A government which is unable to use local resources to develop the country but is in an incessant borrowing spree and even pats itself on the back for doing so has no business being at the helm.

If governance is about the irresponsible contraction of loans and the misapplication of same to the detriment of the state, fools too can be Presidents.