Reverend Kingsley Appiagyei, the Head Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church Worldwide, has called on Ghanaians to adopt mental and attitudinal resilience against corruption.
He said for the country to develop holistically, the citizenry must change their mind-set of cutting corners to become wealthy within the shortest possible time.
Rev. Appiagyei said: “As a nation we have developed a mind-set over years, which does not help productivity and development. A mind-set, which actually makes people think about becoming rich through any means possible.
“Unfortunately I see it to be the basic mind-set of us Ghanaians and something that cut across all boards; it is not only the politicians. It is a mind that needs to be changed”.In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Rev. Appiagyei said corruption had crept into the very fabric of the Ghanaian society, which should not only be associated with politicians, but civil servants as well.
He expressed concern about how corruption had become a normal lifestyle of the Ghanaian, where paying and receiving bribes had become part of everyday operations in institutions.“Each one of us must see this as a canker, whether we like it or not we have been caught up in this web, at times even the gifts we give to people end up corrupting them, so each one of us have to change our attitude towards eradication of the cancer from our society,” he said.
Rev Appiagyei tasked the Church to wage a crusade against all forms of corruption adding that if 70 per cent of the population believed that they were Christians it was an opportunity to shape their mind-set.
He said the Church must work with zeal and passion to help build the society on strong moral values and ethics.Rev. Appiagyei said: “After the prayers we have to go and work, after the prayers we need to choose the right values and exhibit the attitude of Christ“We do not have to go about stealing, finding short cut and then we want to tithe out of that money as a blessing, we have to change,” he said.
He, therefore, charged Ghanaians to build the nation with cardinal values including hard work, honesty, truthfulness, integrity, and time consciousness in the discharge of their duties to accelerate national progress.