Wassa East District bans five churches from using community information center to cast innuendos at other religious groups

The Wassa East District Assembly’s Public Relations and Complaints Committee (PRCC) has suspended five preachers at Wassa Ekutuase from using the Information Centers in the vicinity to propagate what the committee describes not in consonant with the word of God.

The suspended preachers are Kwesi Mbra who owns and operate Information Center by the name Nyonkopa ye, Kwame Baafi of Rabbi Church, Kwame Asante (Church of Christ), Pastor James (Arise Church) and Sofo Abbey (Arise Church).

Announcing the three month suspension at the 1^st Ordinary General Assembly Meeting at Daboase in the Western Region, the Presiding Member of the Assembly Nana Samuel Essel-Bediako who also doubles as the Chairman of PRCC said the committee decided to apply the sanction following a petition filed against the preachers by Chiefs and elders of Wassa Ekutuase. The preachers are said to be engaging in religious extremism as well as attacking other religious groups who does not hold same beliefs by the use of insulting language, casting of innuendos and aspersions against other preachers.

According to him, the affected preachers engage in this unhealthy conduct using the Information Centers as their medium of communication, adding that their actions have thrown the community into a state of religious chaos.

Hon. Essel-Bediako indicated that similar unguarded utterances led to the killings of millions of people in Rwanda, hence the committee’s decision to suspend them to serve as a deterrent to others who may harbour intentions of doing same.

He seized the opportunity to admonish operators of Community Information Centers (CICs) in the District to police individuals who use their facility as a medium to communicate to the public, explaining that they will be held liable for any offensive and unguarded utterances that violates the Assembly’s guidelines for the use of CICs.

Touching on the use of CICs to sell all sorts of drugs and medications, the Presiding Member advised the operators not to be too much interested in the money they make from the medicine merchants but rather be more concerned with public health and harm these unapproved drugs can cause to human life.

Hon. Essel-Bediako urged Assembly Members to assist in educating the operators to do the right thing since their facility can either harm or help the district in achieving its development goals.