There is the need for leaders in the church to stand up for the rights of the underprivileged and marginalised members of the church, who are saddled with economic challenges, Rev Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, General Secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, has said.

According to him, the society had been saddled with high cost of living, human rights abuses, gross indiscipline, and exploitation of the weak and vulnerable, a situation which requires religious leaders, especially, Christian leaders, to fight for the vulnerable.

Speaking to the congregation of the Nantoma Memorial Presbyterian Church at Kanda in Accra, Rev Dr Opuni-Frimpong urged Christian leaders to follow the teaching in Proverbs 31:8-9, which demands they “open their mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die, open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy”.

He observed that Christian leaders were becoming too comfortable in their enclaves provided by the church and had failed to speak about soaring school fees, utility tariffs, and worsening corruption.

The General Secretary challenged the Christian community to strengthen its God-called duty of advocacy and not be afraid to speak against the wrongs of society.

Rev Dr Opuni-Frimpong, for example, said exorbitant fees paid by students for courses such as medicine, engineering and law, automatically sidelined poor students who are brilliant enough to pursue such disciplines.

In a follow up interview with Prince Minakh, host of the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Thursday July 21, Rev Dr Opuni-Frimpong said his call for church leaders to rise against the hardships their members were saddled with was devoid of partisan politics. “We are out there for the common good of the people. …We have not changed, we are neutral, non-partisan. We are always on the fight for the disadvantaged… We are for the common good of the land. We don’t do politics, we don’t accept political appointments…we are over and above partisan politics.”