Pastor Otabil cuts sod for auditorium

Koforidua, April 24, GNA - Pastor Mensah Otabil, the General Overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), has said Ghanaians needed to re-define their mentality and not to see Europeans as the only people who could build the country for them.

He said a time had come for the Ghanaian to take the responsibility towards cohesive nation building and to resist any foreign-dependent mentality that had existed all this while.

Pastor Otabil said this at Koforidua on Saturday when he cut the sod for work to begin on a 2,000-seat auditorium for the ICGC. He said leaders in the country also needed to re-orient themselves with the techniques and strategies vital for the development of the country and the church "otherwise you will move but in the wrong direction".

Mr Yaw Barimah, the Eastern Regional Minister, commended churches for their contribution towards the socio-economic development of the country.

He urged churches to do everything possible to bring back certain Christian values such as dedication to work, honesty, faithfulness, unity and discipline that ''are gradually disappearing from the lives of Christians.''

Mr Barimah said since the country's population was increasing, the cost of education had also become expensive and so the government alone could not bear the responsibility of providing social amenities, especially, education, for all the citizenry.

He said there was the need for parents and non-governmental institutions to also bear part of the cost to achieve the education objective of the government.

Mr Barimah also called on communities to actively participate in the management of schools, health facilities and other development projects in their vicinities to eliminate waste in the use of resources and also to reduce the burden of direct supervision by the government. Touching on HIV/AIDS, Mr Barimah called on church leaders to step up education on the pandemic since the disease continued to threaten the existence of mankind.

Pastor Dickson Tufuor Sarpong, the Pastor in-charge of the ICGC in Koforidua, said when the building was completed it would contain a library which would be opened to the public. ''It will be available for use by other religions who may not have similar facility.''