Bishop Charles Agyinasare has bemoaned the plundering of state funds by Ghanaian politicians whose standard of living shoot through the roof overnight.

“Politicians stop stealing the people’s money for yourselves,” he told his congregation on Sunday, 24 September, explaining that: “And this one I didn’t say it. Unfortunately for us in Ghana, the politicians are telling us that they are thieves. Every change of government the politicians tell us the other politicians [their predecessors] they were stealing so in our minds the politicians are telling us they are thieves.

“Now if it is so Mr Politician, don’t steal our money, keep our money. So, if we desire righteousness, we must have clean hands,” Bishop Agyinasare admonished.

He wondered how “a politician from a village” who may have been “a pupil teacher or a trained teacher, suddenly becomes an MP and the next time he is going to the village, he is in a four-wheel drive and in the next four years he has built three houses.”

“Where did you get the money from? The money you are being paid in parliament is not enough to get three, four houses in that place,” he added.

He said there was the need for Christians who go into politics to change the narrative. “And we are saying many Christians should go into politics and as you go into politics, you want to make the difference.”

Bishop Agyinasare, however, acknowledged that certain cultural practices entrench corruption in Ghana.

“And you know, some of the greatest challenges we have, why we can’t come out of corruption – but we will come out – is that our system is such that you can’t even sanction anybody. Somebody does something wrong and then its exposed and you want to do something the next day you’ll see the presiding bishop – and normally we do it early in the morning, 6 O’clock – yes, he has done it but temper justice with mercy. And the tempering justice with mercy we are saying that we should corner the thing, we shouldn’t deal with the thing and if the priest doesn’t come, the bishop doesn’t come then the chief will come.

“In fact I just learnt that in some of our paramountcies there is what we call Gyantuahene, where you offend and you go to see him to go and pacify [on your behalf], so they go and ask for mercy for you and so we are not sanctioning anybody, we don’t judge sin, we don’t punish wrongdoers and so as long as wrongdoers see that there is no punishment for wrong, wrongdoing will continue. May God help us as a people,” he complained.