Pastors Exchange Blows Over Missing Offering

TWO PASTORS are at each other’s throats over missing offertory from participants of an event they had organized in collaboration with some Singaporeans on Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at the National Theatre, Accra.
So serious was the issue that Reverend Dr. Robert Ampiah-Kwofi of the Global Revival Ministries had to intervene while they found an amicable solution to the simmering scandal which may further damage the ailing image of the clergy. However, DAILY GUIDE can confirm that one of the feuding pastors had reported a theft at the Panters Unit at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Headquarters, while the other who is the alleged suspect in the case had also made a complaint of assault at the Airport District Police Station. 
Sources close to the police headquarters said the police were waiting until Rev Ampiah-Kwofi, who is the mediator in the case, reported back to them on whether or not he had been able to quench the fire. Ironically, the accuser in the case owed the accused GH¢1000.00,
being fees the accused had charged for the part he played in the organization of the seminar which was held under the theme ‘Unveiling the Mysteries of Genesis Genealogies’. 
Among the roles the accused played was finding an interior decorator for the auditorium. He also scouted for instrumentalists for the two-day seminar, doubled as a Master of the Ceremony (MC) as well as a guest musician. According to a source close to both pastors, when the accused asked for money to pay the people whose services he had engaged, there was a near scuffle as the complainant who had reported the theft, sought to avoid payment.
However, at the insistence of the suspect pastor, one of the guests from Singapore gave out $1,200 to cater for the cost. After paying off the debtors, the accused demanded his own fee, but his employer refused to pay and rather accused him of stealing the offering.


Meanwhile, a source said the offering was an unspecified amount of money raised by the accused person during a fund raising segment at the event. The source said it seemed there was a grand plot on the part of the pastor to smear the accused person’s image and avoid paying the GH¢1000.00 owed him. The seminar, DAILY GUIDE has gathered, was poorly-attended due to the low publicity.
As a result, the organizers became indebted to so many people, a reason for which a plan to allege that the offering had been stolen might have been cooked so as to win public sympathy so that their debt could be cancelled by debtors. Both pastors have since refused to comment on the issue as calls to their phones were not answered.
Meanwhile, the Crime Officer of Airport Police Station, DSP Felix Anyidoho, confirmed that a gentleman reported at the station on Friday, September 30, that a meeting at Shangri-La hotel had turned confrontational when he was attacked by a host of others who accused him of stealing an offering at a programme at the National Theatre. The Crime Officer said a police medical form was issued to the man to undergo medical examination, which was to be endorsed by a medical officer.
The gentleman left and has since not returned the form so that the Medical experts could accertain if a case of mental instability had been diagnosed.