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Rev. Prof. Martey speaking at the event tuesday attended by the media and some church members. Picture: GLADYS ATTA BOATENG.
Rev. Prof. Martey speaking at the event tuesday attended by the media and some church members. Picture: GLADYS ATTA BOATENG.

‘Some politicians tried bribing me with $100,000’

The outgoing Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG), Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Martey, yesterday stirred controversy when he alleged that some unknown politicians tried to gag him from speaking on issues of national concern with a $100,000-bribe and other incentives.

Falling short of mentioning names, he said: “Politicians have tried to muscle me but they can’t. They come with bribes, fat envelopes ... $100,000. Politicians came to my house with $100,000, not cedis, and also with promises that ‘if you keep quiet we’ll give you a house at Trasacco with a swimming pool. We will give you a four-wheel drive’.”

“These people were lucky I did not have big dogs in my house... I’d have released the dogs to bite them for the whole world to ask, ‘Ohh Moderator, why are you so wicked?’ and I’d have told them to ask them what they came to do,” he said to a chorus of laughter at a press conference in Accra to present a communiqué issued by the church after its 16th General Assembly.

The leadership of the PCG gathered in Kwahu Abetifi  from August 19-25 to deliberate on issues of church and national concern.

No further details 

Approached later by the Daily Graphic for further details, the brutally frank Minister of the Gospel declined to give further details, saying, “I don’t I want to give any clue.”

He said it was regrettable that pastors who spoke about national issues came under attack as if they were not Ghanaians.

Rev. Prof. Martey is not new to controversy, as he is known to speak his mind on national issues, often coming under a barrage of attacks.

 “It is only nation wreckers who will be offended when men and women of God speak about corruption, malfeasance and reckless dissipation of public funds,” he said.

He said he would not be gagged on issues of national concern, as he was a taxpayer who sometimes panicked when he saw tax deductions on his pay slip but could not complain because the deductions were meant for the country’s development.

He insisted that he would not sell his conscience to any political party, adding that perhaps those who accused him of being a New Patriotic Party (NPP) member were paying his membership dues to that party.

In spite of reports that he had endorsed the candidature of the NPP flag bearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, ahead of the 2016 elections, he insisted that the church was neither affiliated to any political party nor supported one.

Rather, he said, the church had always been in partnership with successive governments, particularly in the areas of health care and education, adding that the request for partnership from the NPP flag bearer was like asking for what already existed if a party was in power.

Rev. Prof. Martey claimed that he had recently received three phone calls from unidentified National Democratic Congress (NDC) members and advised the leadership of that party to advise members of the party who insulted pastors to stop the act, as it would alienate the party from Ghanaians. 

Communiqué

Delivering the six-page communiqué earlier, he said while the church acknowledged the efforts of the  government, the Electoral Commission (EC), the political parties and Ghanaians in general to advance the cause of democracy through transparent, free and fair elections in December, it also urged the EC to be on the side of caution.

“The PCG urged the Electoral Commission to tread cautiously on all matters relating to this year’s elections. As the 2016 elections draw closer, it may be helpful to remember how close the nation came to disaster after the 2012 elections and to recognise that peace has to be engineered on all fronts.

“We must note that since elections are fundamental building blocks of democracy, free and fair elections are central to the legitimacy of democratic governance. We, therefore, wish to advise the EC to perform to the satisfaction of all stakeholders,” it said.

Examination malpractices 

The communiqué, which also touched on the role of political parties and the media before, during and after the elections, issues of social concern, including occultism in schools, examination malpractices and the energy crisis, urged the government to consider the call by stakeholders, including  the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), to extend the duration of senior high school education to four years.

That and other measures, including stopping the publication of a “league table” of schools, enhanced teacher motivation, deeper parent-teacher role in policy formulation and severe punishment for culprits of examination malpractices, it said, would be a panacea to the recurrent problem of examination malpractices.

Rev. Prof. Martey, however, commended the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for plugging the leaks in examination papers during the recent Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

Although in the last few months the energy situation had improved, the church urged the government to initiate measures that would “mitigate the harsh economic and fiscal problems confronting Ghanaians now”.

“Despite the fact that the earlier ‘dumsor’ debacle appears to have reduced, new challenges have left the ordinary Ghanaian completely paralysed, pinned under an unfriendly electricity tariff regime that no one seems capable of handling,” it said.

 

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