The General Overseer of the Action Chapel International Ministry, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, says governments must learn to identify and utilise the potential of persons in opposition parties.
This will ensure that the country benefits from its human resources irrespective of one’s political affiliation, he noted.
Speaking during a service in his church on Sunday, Archbishop Duncan-Williams said individuals who have no capacity must not be appointed into government based on their loyalty.
“The fact that you are loyal to your party and you help your party to win an election does not mean you have the capacity to govern with your party.
“If people are not part of your party but they have the capacity to do something to advance the course of the country, you must give them the opportunity for the sake of the good of the country,” he emphasised.
This statement by the renowned pastor was based on the governance style adopted by former President John Agyekum Kufuor which he said has not been replicated under the erstwhile John Mahama administration and the current Akufo-Addo-led government.
Touching on the issue of abandoned projects, the Archbishop expressed worry over how the lack of continuity in governance has soiled the essence of democracy on the continent.
“As a nation, we must have a national agenda that compels every political party in our country to work together so that when any party comes into office, it is not your manifesto or agenda that matters but what matters is a national agenda that allows for continuity because what we are doing now is not sustainable.
“We are allowing strangers, foreigners to come into this country and to prosper and to do well while the citizens are not doing well because of the way we are managing our democracy. Our party politics is not healthy,” he said.
Again, Archbishop Duncan-Williams stressed that the ‘winner takes all’ culture being practised in the country is affecting growth and development.
He added that political parties and politicians now put effort into sabotaging each other when in power, thereby creating a vicious cycle of unsustainable wealth.
“Today, we live in a country since the Fourth Republic and it is not just Ghana but I see it everywhere in the African nations, where you find two political parties diving the country because if one party comes into office, the other party in opposition and their members suffer.
“They are literally bankrupt, undermined, and destroyed and so when they also come and this party is out of power, they also want to settle scores.
“So we don’t have sustainable wealth because everyone is waiting for an opportunity so that they can come in and when they come in they destroy the other party’s members because they were destroyed.
“So if you are NDC and NPP comes into office, the members of NPP will have to bankrupt your business, kill your business and you go into exile and you suffer so NDC waits and when they come into the office they go after all the businessman of NPP and finish them.
“It has become a vicious cycle, what we are doing is not sustainable and we are doing it in the name of democracy, that is not democracy.”
He also condemned party sympathizers who amass wealth when their party comes to power.
“I am not impressed with what is going on. With this thing where people don’t work or create anything, but they are sitting down only to wait for their party to come so they can get a deal.”