The Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) fears factories under the1-district, 1-factory policy will collapse if government officials and Ghanaians refuse to consume products that would be produced by them.

“Our leaders are preaching the use of made-in-Ghana goods, yet we print our T-shirts outside Ghana.

We design clothes, books, diaries outside”, the General Secretary, Rev Dr. Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong told Onua FM’s Ghana Dadwene on Tuesday. He said “if we don’t build national confidence in the products we will produce from the one-district-one factory, the factories will collapse. Leaders must show leadership by eating local food at state functions.

Credit cards are printed outside. Rice is grown outside Ghana and all these do not put confidence into the local economy”.

Rev Opuni-Frimpong noted that “if we are doing free education and our leaders do not send their children to the local schools but their children go to private schools and abroad, they [Ghanaians] will know our schools are not good. We must bring public confidence into what we do here”.

Backs President’s call for hard work

The General Secretary backed the President’s call on Ghanaians not to balance their religious lives with that of hard work. “We agree with the President because the Bible says everything has its own time.

As Christians, we should know when to work and when to pray because if someone has employed you and you have to serve customers but you decided to go and pray instead of serving the customers, you will collapse that company and that will be a disgrace to God”.

He added that “civil servant who runs away to go and pray instead of being in the office must stop because such practices are collapsing government enterprises”.

The man of God admitted that “some prayers are good and necessary due to depressing on some people. Some people, if we allow them to be in their homes, will be a disaster.

Some people cannot sleep in their homes alone and so they need prayers, but pastors should not keep them for long”. He added that some people go to church from morning to evening, from Monday to Friday which is against the will of God because Bible says we should work and eat so we must balance our time with God and work”.

Vigilante groups

Rev Opuni-Frimpong said vigilante groups supported by the various political parties “is sad and disgrace to Ghana”. He said the formation of vigilante groups started from the “Rawlings era to Kufuor’s time, it was there during late President Mills’ time and former President Mahama time and now President Akufo-Addo but there should be an end to it now”.

“If Nana Addo wants to leave a legacy, he should end the violence perpetrated by these vigilante groups now”, Rev Opuni-Frimpong advised. He noted, “Some big men are behind but Nana Addo should uproot that”.