Winneba (C/R), Aug 15, GNA - Christians have been urged to respect both religious and secular laws of the country since failure to do so would spell the doom of the nation.

Mr Solomon Kwashie Abbam-Quaye, District Chief Executive for Awutu-Effutu-Senya, who stated this, did not understand why some Christians could not blend them as enshrined in the constitution for accelerated national development.

He was addressing a large congregation of Catholics at a special service by the Winneba Parish on Sunday, to climax the official visit by His Eminence Peter Cardinal Apppiah-Turkson, head of the Church in Ghana to the area.

He also called for the same treatment of both the country's religious and political hierarchies.

Just as the religious leaders administered their various denominations, government appointees were in-charge of the day-to-day administration of the country and deserved the same respect from the people, he said.

Through this, the DCE noted that, Christians would be putting into practice the teachings of Jesus Christ, "to give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and unto God what belongs to God" for others to emulate.

According to him the laws that governed nations were derived from natural laws and people had to adhere to them. He told the congregations that the joy and the educative lessons they acquired at church services would be meaningless if they failed to translate "such vital divine qualities outside the four walls of their various Church buildings".

Mr Abbam-Quaye criticised Christian parents especially some of them in the District, who turned a blind eye to the education of their children and advised them to change their attitude for the better. The DCE expressed his displeasure against Christians who condoned with other people to put up structures in water-ways, evaded taxes and "put the law into their own hands" to desist from such acts. He mentioned that the space around the new Kasoa market complex that had been demarcated and sold out to some traders for between 1,000,000.00 to 1,500,000 Cedis for containers to be placed there and used as stores.

Mr Abbam-Quaye said statistics available to his office indicated that the District ranked last in girl-child education in the Central Region.

He noted that it also showed that most girls in the area ended their education at the ages of between 12 and 14 years because of teenage pregnancies.

The DCE urged parents and guardians to team up with the District Assembly and other stakeholders to device a way of curbing it. He asked parents facing abject poverty to take advantage of the free compulsory education by the government to enrol their children when school reopened.