Court orders Ebenezer Worship Center to close down

The Accra branch of the Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre on the Spintex Road has been ordered to relocate within six months or face forcible ejection for excessive noise-making.

That was the outcome of a two-year legal tussle between residents of Spintex, represented by the Public Health Depa11ment of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), and the church.

An Accra Magistrate's Court, presided over by Mrs Faustina Mary Addington, gave the order in its final ruling on the case on August 24, this year.

The court also ordered the immediate demolition of the church building should it fail to relocate.

The Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre, with its headquarters in Kumasi, is led by Reverend Dr Ebenezer Adarkwa- Yiadom, also known as Prophet One.

The prosecutor of the AMA Public Health Department, Madam Linda Kumbunu, told the Daily Graphic that the department was compelled to drag the church to court to seek its closure or relocation because of several complaints it received from residents of Spintex, especially those living around the church premises at Flower Pot.

She said following a complaint lodged with the Metropolitan Chief Executive in February 2010, a team was dispatched to the premises of the church to investigate the alleged noise nuisance.

She said investigations done on the church during one of its evening services revealed that the noise level was 88.5 decibels; while the permissible noise level in a residential area in the night, as enshrined in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) noise level guidelines, was 48 decibels.

The accused, Rev. Richard Newman Aboah, represented by Samuel Seth Wood, challenged the measurement of the noise level by the public health team.

His explanation was that at the time of the measurement of the noise level, one side of the church building was not sealed and so sound passed through that side to produce the noise but that that side had now been sealed.

Contrary to that submission, Madam Kumbunu stated that a report was presented by one of the complainants, as well as the prosecutor, that the accused had not desisted from the noise nuisance.

The department is now awaiting the order from the court to serve on the church.