Apostle Eric Nyamekye
The Church of Pentecost (COP) has indicated its readiness to partner government in the pursuit of its development agenda over the next five years.
Dubbed Vision 2013, the church’s development plan encapsulates an 8-point strategic agenda intended to contribute to the transformation of Ghana.
Apostle Eric Nyamekye, Chairman of the COP, which has over 2.6 million members in Ghana, disclosed this while delivering an address at the launch of the church’s 2018 environmental care campaign at Kokomlemle, Accra on Wednesday.
Water provision
According to him, the church would partner government to, among others, provide potable drinking water in some selected deprived communities, initiate a programme in collaboration with government to put up community-based health planning and services (CHPS) compounds to improve access to health care in selected deprived communities and partner government to establish more public basic schools at strategic places to enable the poor have improved access to education.
Security
Apostle Nyamekye also emphasised that the church would initiate a security-based development project dubbed, ‘Police Station & Post Project (PSPP), to put up police stations/police posts in some selected deprived communities and insecure areas.
Accommodation for prisoners
He said “in collaboration with the Ghana Prisons Service, the church will initiate the construction of accommodation facilities (cells) for selected prisons in the country as part of efforts to support government to reduce congestion in those prisons.”
Training
He said the church would also train more chaplains and deploy them to various institutions such as the military, police, prisons, hospice/hospitals, sports, orphanages, palaces, as well as some corporate institutions to help promote the values and principles of God’s Kingdom in Ghana.
Support for PWDs
He added: “We shall also be committed to strengthening ministry to persons with disability. Among other things, we shall design intervention programmes to help us care and attend to the needs of the disabled community, including the provision of Braille materials for people, who are blind, listening devices for people, who are hearing-impaired and large prints for people, who are visually-impaired. We shall as well equip these persons with the needed skills to be productive in the communities in which they live.”
Bus stops
Furthermore, the chairman of the COP said that administrative areas and districts of the church shall be encouraged to construct shelters at bus stops for communal use.
“We shall also encourage our assemblies, districts and areas of the church to identity community challenges that the church can work on in contributing to community level development.”
Apostle Nyamekye also appealed to government to collaborate for successful implementation.
Environmental care
Apostle Samuel Gakpetor, Director of the Environmental Care Campaign, also explained how the church would promote environmental care drive through education, clean-up exercises, community based initiatives and other activities.
He said clean-up exercises would be carried out in the over 60,000 home cells, 15,000 local congregations, 1,600 pastoral districts and the 65 areas of the COP.
Partnership with Zoomlion
Zoomlion Ghana Limited has agreed to partner the COP to execute its environment care plan.
Dr Joseph Siaw, Group Chairman, in an address, said the company would avail its employees and equipment for use, adding that it would also manufacture and distribute waste bins for onward distribution to every house in Ghana.
By Samuel Boadi