News:
May 6, 2011
The Member of Parliament for Jirapa, Dr Francis Bawaana Dakura has bemoaned the increasing rate at which Reverend Ministers of the gospel are in the news for the wrong reasons in recent times.
According to him Pastors are supposed to be role models for humanity and it becomes worrying when they involve themselves in vices that they themselves preach against.
The MP concerns follow the sentencing of the General Overseer of the Vineyard Chapel International, Bishop Vaglas Kanco, to 18 months imprisonment after being found guilty for defrauding by false pretenses. Bishop Kanco was accused of defrauding a British national, Ms Clova Sutherland, of £120,000.
He was alleged to have made the complainant to believe that she would die if she did not allow him to pray over the cheque for the money. He pleaded not guilty to one count of defrauding by false pretense and was on bail.
The court said it was Bishop Kanco who convinced the complainant that the cheque needed to be exorcised of the alleged demonic spirits of the occult practices of the complainant’s husband.
The court said the complainant was cash strapped and needed the money to pay her debts in the UK and it was not possible to give such an amount to the Bishop as a gift.
However contributing to a discussion on e.tv Ghana’s Breakfast TV show on Friday 6th May 2011, the Member of Parliament for Jirapa, Dr Francis Bawaana Dakura, described Bishop Vaglas kanco who was very popular in the early-nineties unfortunate incident as a bad case for the Christian community.
He called on the Association of Charismatic Churches to take immediate action to weed out charlatans (pastors) who are out there to defraud unsuspecting people.
Hon. Bawaana Dakura also urged Christians to be discerning enough to know which pastors they can consult for help.
Story by : Kwadwo Anim/ghanamps.gov.gh