Church offering drops because of dumsor

The ongoing spate of power outages in the country is not only affecting businesses and other social activities, as the Founder and General Overseer of Glorious Ministries International; Rev Dr. Isaac Owusu Bempah has revealed that church attendance and offerings have drastically reduced.

According to the controversial man of God, Ghanaians are going through difficulties due to shocks in the economy and erratic power supply, which he said have greatly affected the income of traders and business owners.

According to Rev Owusu Bempah, due to pressures on the income of Ghanaians which has culminated into economic hardship and deprivation, they are unable to attend church service as they would have wished and this has also affected offerings collected by churches.

The Man of God, who is well known for his doom prophecies, while speaking to News-One newspaper, said “My son, the truth is that, now everybody is going through hardship, and it has affected church attendance. People don’t come to church as they used to because they don’t have money to either take transport or give offering.”

He blamed challenges in the country on selfish and greedy government officials who he said don’t have the nation at heart, questioning that “how can the nation move forward if we have selfish and greedy leaders?”

He advised that “If the nation will succeed then our leaders must eschew selfishness and greed. They must learn to always tell the truth and stop the lies.”

While Rev Owusu Bempah has sought to blame the country’s woes on government officials, the Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna, is also accusing clergy of corrupting politicians and public office-holders.

Speaking at the 15th anniversary of New Life School in Damongo in the Northern Region, the Minister said the practice where government officials are asked to pay huge sums of money for prayers and other fundraising activities only compel them to steal money to keep up appearances in their religious organizations.

“You [Pastors] tell us that if you can afford Ghc1, 000, come for this special prayer …so if I’m sitting there as a Minister and I cannot afford, I will be ashamed, so the next time, I will do all means to get money and that is why we have officials trying to steal money because they have to be respected in the church,” he explained.

“We are pushing people to be corrupt because you want to hail them because they are able to contribute enough either in [the] mosque or in the church,” he added.

Meanwhile, Rev Owusu Bempah, who was quoted early this year to have predicted the death of the 2016 presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has denied ever making such prophesy.

Delivering a sermon on December 31 to usher in the New Year, Rev Owusu Bempah was reported to have prophesized that the NPP will lose the 2016 election and that will mark the end of the party’s dream of ever coming back to power.

Characteristic of the controversial man of God’s prophesies, he revealed to the dismay of the congregation that a big funeral will befall the NPP that will open a way for a new flag bearer election.

But Rev Owusu Bempah in an interview with News-One denied making such predictions, saying “What I said about Nana Addo was that there are some people who are planning to kill him. However, they will not succeed.”

“The evil-plotters are burying live cows, all in an attempt to eliminate Nana Addo. I have seen the very people who are doing that, and I am warning them to stop or else the wrath of God will come upon them and they will be exposed,” Rev. Bempah said.