The Fight against Corruption in Ghana: The Role of the Church and Church Leaders
- November 27, 2018
- Posted by: RSIS
- Category: Social Science
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume II, Issue XI, November 2018 | ISSN 2454–6186
The Fight against Corruption in Ghana: The Role of the Church and Church Leaders
Rev. Anthony Kofi Anomah
Abstract: – This paper investigates the role of the Church and Christian Leaders in the fight against corruption in Ghana. Paradoxically, about 71% of the total population of 29.4 million Ghanaian claim allegiance to Christianity, with membership in one Christian denomination or the other. However, transparency international report in 2015 ranked Ghana second with 76%, even though earlier reports on Ghana by other Corruption Perception Index had ranked Ghana favourably in relation to other countries in Africa. This paper reviews mainly secondary sources on the Internet using news and business items in the Ghanaian media in the last twenty years (1998-20018) and primary data from a doctoral research to explore the causes and effects of corruption on Ghana’s development and the role of the Church and Church Leaders in the country’s efforts to curb the menace of corruption.
Key Word: Church, Church Leaders, Corruption, Fight
I. INTRODUCTION
Ghana is a country in the Western part of Africa. It was the first Black country, South of the Sahara to gain independence from the British Colonial rule on 6th March 1957 with Dr. Kwame Nkrumahas the first President. Since then, Ghana has been ruled by democratically elected Presidents interspersed by military regimes. Ghana runs the parliamentary system of government with three arms of government: The Executive, The Judiciary and The Legislature. Ghana has ten administrative divisions called Regions and headed by Regional Ministers. Ghana has a population of about 29.4 million of which about 71% are Christians, 17% Muslims and the rest are adherents of African Traditional Religion or no religion at all.Ghana is bounded on the south by the Gulf of Guinea, on the north by Burkina Faso, on the west by Ivory Coast and on the east by Togo.
Corruption has been in existence since the Fall of human kind in the Old Testament. “The earth grew corrupt in God’s sight, and filled with violence. God contemplated the earth: it was corrupt, for corrupt were the ways of all flesh on the the earth” (Gen. 6:12).
Since independence, Ghana has witnessed massive corruption at different levels from one government to another whether democratically elected or military regime.
