The Police Must Move To Stop Deceptions By Pastors

Last week Tuesday, members of the Offinso Traditional Council and the nation were stunned by the disclosure that some pastors in the country rely on the connivance of fraudsters to perform 'miracles' in their churches.

Madam Ama Bisiw of Asamankoma near Offinso in the Ashanti Region was reported to have formed a syndicate with the intention of partnering pastors to dupe unsuspecting members of the public.

She is said to have trained about 100 fraudsters who are deployed all over the country to fake various ailments, and aid pastors to defraud people who want breakthroughs in seeming 'miracles'.

According to Madam Bisiw, some of the trainees feign blindness, barrenness and disabilities of all forms in order for the pastors to 'heal' at churches for a fee.

The fraudster indicated that most of the miracles in the churches are fake, an indication that most of the activities of the 'Latter Day Saint' pastors are nothing, but fraud and deception of the unsuspecting members of the public.

The activities of Madam Bisiw and her pastor partners in crime also pass for cheating, swindling, trickery, artifice, deceit, deception, and double-dealing. By definition, fraud is a wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.

In Ghana, under the Criminal Offences Act, a person is guilty of defrauding by false pretences if, by means of any false pretence, he obtains the consent of another person to part with or transfer the ownership of anything. In law, fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, and it is punishable under the law.

Madam Bisiw intends to name all the pastors she had partnered to deceive the public in the course of the investigations, in order that they (pastors) are exposed and shamed. There are as many pastors as there are churches, and, obviously, there are bad ones and good ones.

It is against this background that The Chronicle thinks the police should swiftly engage itself in undercover investigations to bust Madam Bisiw's syndicate and others, and unravel the circumstances by which pastors, who claim to perform mind-boggling miracles, deceive the public for possible prosecution.

The police intervention, in line with its mandate to maintain law and order and peace and stability, would help the public identify who the real men of God are, and avoid being trapped in their nets.

This is our simple plea to the Inspector General of Police to, as a matter of the utmost urgency, direct his able detectives to move into action and save the people from being milked by pastors.