General News of Wednesday, 26 June 2013

Source: The Informer

Presby Moderator, Elders accused of sexual misconduct

The house of God is a place where those who have sinned go to purge themselves.

But when those who are in-charge of such houses of God make it their routine to misconduct themselves, where then should sinners go to?

This has been the situation in which elders of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) find themselves as the beleaguered Public Relations Officer (PRO), Mr. Emmanuel Osei Akyeampong goes bonkers resulting in his dismissal.

The Presby Church in a face-saving attempt, puts in a disclaimer that it has sacked its PRO, Emmanuel Osei Akyeampong. The statement issued said its PRO was relieved of his post due to acts of misrepresentation and fraud.

The whole truth, however, is now emerging: Credible sources close to the Presby Church of Ghana have told The Informer that the main reason why the PRO was being sacked was that, he had appealed to the elders of the church to try and control the “things in their pants”.

The sources explained further that there were so many stories of sexual harassments pointing to some senior married priests in the church (names withheld), who are having extramarital affairs with married women and young girls in the vineyard.

The sources continued: “whenever the PRO came to ask for money to kill damaging stories involving some elders and priests, the leadership accused him of fraud. What they did not know was that the PRO had not been telling the entire leadership some of the sexual escapades of some senior priests in the Presby Church”.

They also hinted that not all members of the leadership were in agreement with the termination of Mr. Emmanuel Osei Akyeampong’s appointment as the PRO of the church, and had since the release of the disclaimer, been at loggerheads with the moderator, Reverend Professor Emmanuel Mamah Martey.

However, Mr. Emmanuel Osei Akyeampong has on various networks accused the moderator and some elders of the church of certain sexual misconduct.

It would be recalled that, Mr. Emmanuel Osei Akyeampong was all over the place raining some unprintable words on the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Freezones Board, Mr. Kojo Twum-Boafo, when they exposed the Presby Church for its partisan stance in the round-up to the 2012 general elections.

We publish below unedited, the disclaimer issued by the Presby Church for our readers’ perusal:

OFFICIAL NOTICE TO ALL MEDIA HOUSES/THE GENERAL PUBLIC

Peace be unto you. The General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana would like to inform all Media Houses/the general public that, Mr. Emmanuel Osei Akyeampong, who used to be the Public Relations Officer (P.R.O) of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, is no longer an employee of the Church. This is as a result of the lawful termination of his appointment as the Public Relations Officer (P.R.O.) of the Church, due to acts of misrepresentation and fraud.

He is making all the attempts to personalize the issues and publish falsehood about individual officers of the church, who are only performing their official duties by virtue of their respective offices, a case in point is what happened on Adorn FM this morning, in which he had presented blatant lies about the Clerk and the Moderator of the General Assembly.

We humbly entreat all Media Houses/the general public to ignore or disregard information sent to you by Mr. Emmanuel Osei Akyeampong, in respect of Officers of the Church.

More importantly, to avoid the tendency of being used by Mr. Emmanuel Osei Akyeampong for any character assassination, defamation of individual officers and the implementation of his malicious plans against the Church of God, we are urging you to be cautious in dealing with him.

Finally, the Presbyterian Church of Ghana would likely to state her total support for the Media Freedom, Media Pluralism and the Media alert in the country today. Hence, our offices are open to all, on future issues or matters of the Church.

However, we would like all media houses to note that the official spokespersons of the Church are the Moderator and the Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Issues relating to public relations should be directed to Rev. Obeng Agyei as the acting P.R.O.

Counting on our cooperation for the co-existence of all, thank you.

Yours faithfully,

Signed

REV. DR. SAMUEL AYETE-NYAMPONG

CLERK OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF GHANA

Cc: All Presbytery Chairpersons