Thursday, March 26, 2009

USE PULPIT TO FIGHT CORRUPTION (PAGE 55)

The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Mr Vitus Azeem, has called on religious leaders to use the pulpit to preach on corruption in the society.
He also entreated them to practice what they preach and do “good housekeeping” which would eventually enable them to earn the respect of both the citizens and the government.
The executive secretary made the call at the opening of a two-day training workshop on ethics for religious leaders in Tamale last Monday.
It was aimed at creating awareness among religious bodies on corruption, its manifestations and its negative impact on governance and development of the society.
It had as its theme: “Zero tolerance for corruption: the role of religious bodies in Ghana”.
It was organised jointly by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the National Catholic Secretariat, Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission and the Christian Council of Ghana.
Mr Azeem explained that religious bodies would gain more credibility as champions of transparency and accountability if they practised the virtues they preached.
“A corrupt religious body can never challenge a corrupt society; religions must, therefore, choose to bring their traditions and avowed opposition to corruption to bear on their own practices and the examples set by their leaders and key organisations, ” Mr Azeem said.
He said the GII was one of the proactive civil society organisations recognised by the government of Ghana and its development partners as an essential component in fighting corruption and achieving good governance.
The Northern Regional Chairman of the Inter-Religious Dialogue Committee, Alhaji Dr Al-Hussein Zakaria, called on religious bodies to use their inter-faith dialogue to help eradicate corruption in the society.
He noted that religious bodies had the mandate to fight political, moral, administrative and financial corruption and must also focus on fighting institutional corruption.
The chairman also bemoaned the spate of embezzlement cases coming out, sex scandals and the abuse of public trust among religious leaders in the country.
Those acts, he maintained, were “unbecoming of religious leaders who are expected to live above reproach to build credible public image and function as role models”.
Dr Zakaria stressed that eradicating corruption was a “super ordinate goal” that could not be achieved by only one religious body.
“For some time now, religious leaders have engaged in dialogue which has much to do with talking together at seminars but the time has come to transform talking together to working together to solve common problems”, he further said.
During an open forum, some of the participants blamed some religious leaders for their failure to preach seriously against corruption in the society.

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