I will provide incentives to churches and Islamic organizations – Dr. Bawumia

The Vice President of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who is also the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has expressed his desire for a closer relationship between the government and faith-based organizations.

He emphasized the significant contributions of faith-based organizations, such as churches and Islamic groups, in building schools and hospitals nationwide.

Dr Bawumia stated that these organizations have done more for Ghana than many external development partners and should be treated as partners in development.

Dr Bawumia aims to establish a "golden age" of cooperation between the government and faith-based organizations by offering them incentives to help the government.

"That golden age means we are going to give incentives to faith-based organizations to help government. There are a lot of incentives we give to our external development partners.

"They bring in things duty-free and so on, but they don't do as much for us as the faith-based organizations. I am going to give a lot of incentives to the faith-based organizations to help government".

Dr Bawumia said this during a breakfast meeting with the clergy and Imams in the Eastern Region at Akropong during the start of his nationwide campaign tour.

He noted that external development partners receive various incentives, such as duty-free imports, yet their contributions are not as substantial as those of faith-based organizations.

"I want us (the government) and faith-based organizations to have a very close relationship. I have said that if you look at the work that the faith-based organizations, the churches, and so on have done for Ghana, it is more than many of our external development partners will ever do for Ghana.

"Much, much more. The schools they have built, the hospitals they have built but we always don't treat our faith-based organizations as partners in development. I want to bring a whole new chapter in the relationship between our churches and our faith-based Islamic organizations and bring a golden age of that relationship between the church and faith-based organizations and government."

Dr Bawumia called for their support in maintaining peace and religious tolerance in the country.

Dr Bawumia also highlighted the government's achievements in job creation, stating that 2.1 million jobs have been created in the last seven years, with 925,000 in the private sector and 1.2 million in the public sector.