FGBMFI launches campaign against corruption

The Ghana Chapter of the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International (FGBMFI) has launched a campaign against corruption and other forms of unethical practices.

Dubbed ‘Unashamedly Ethical’, the campaign seeks to mobilise companies and individuals to make a public declaration to develop a culture of ethics in public office, at the workplace and in private lives.

With the slogan “Do the right thing right now”, the campaign is guided by a founding vision to transform society by taking a stand for ethics, values and clean living to root out corruption and promote ethical behaviour in the country.

Launch

The initiative was launched by the immediate-past Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, in Accra last Friday as part of activities marking the 2019 FGBMFI National Convention in Accra.

Mrs Justice Wood, along with a Justice of the Court of Appeal, Mrs Justice Gertrude Torkonoo; the Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission, Professor Stephen Adei, and other dignitaries who graced the event, endorsed the campaign by signing a declaration form.

Commendation

Mrs Justice Wood commended the FGBMFI for the initiative, describing corruption as an ill that “undermines democratic governance and national development and militates against the peace and stability of the nation.”

The surge in unethical practices, the former Chief Justice observed, was because “Godly living does not appear to be one of our priorities in life”.

She implored the Christian community, representing about 66 per cent of the population, to work to curb the menace.

“The clear implication — given that we pride ourselves in the fact that about 66 per cent of our population are Christians — is that we have deliberately refused to allow God’s word to have free reign in our lives and so we conduct ourselves in a manner that does not honour God,” she said.

She added that ”this evidently places a burden on the Christian community to work to curb this menace which in plain terms is sinful”.

Mrs Justice Torkonoo equally observed that there was a surge in unethical behaviour because “dishonesty in public life, stealing and lying have become behaviour that we have considered culturally normal”.

“In 2018, Ghana was positioned at 140 out of 189 countries and territories when it came to the scale of human development. Our Human Development Index value increased from 0.455 to 0.592, a meagre 30.1 per cent from 1990 to 2017.

“This extremely slow rate of human development has come from a lack of identification or strong values and ethical content around which this nation can run,” she said.

FGBMFI

The FGBMFI is the world’s largest Christian businessmen’s organisation, networking thousands of members in more than 70 nations.
It has been in existence since 1952 and is purely intra-denominational.

FGBMFI-Ghana was formed on October 29, 1984 and has since established branches in all but one of the 16 regions of the country.