Ghana-SFO To Probe Charismatic Churches
For the period of 27 months, that is from January 2000 to March 2002, Pastor Abraham Aiyelabowo, as Head of the Living Faith World Outreach Centre in Accra, popularly known as the Winners Chapel, remitted to Lagos, a total of US$814,474 (about ¢7.3billion).
This works to an average of over U.S.$30,000 a month. Pastor Aiyelabowo admitted authorizing and approving the withdrawals but he had ‘no knowledge of the means by which the dollar currency was transported to Nigeria.
In two months, May and June 2002, the then Head of the Mission, Bishop George Adjeman, remitted US$154,778 (about ¢1.39 billion) to its headquarters in Lagos. These are some of the revelations in the investigations into allegations of illegal transfers of fund by the Living Faith World Outreach Centre, a.k.a Winners Chapel.
The report is contained in the 2004 Annual report of Ghana's Serious Fraud Office and submitted to Parliament. The report also said "remittances to the Headquarters in Lagos took a major share of the revenue of the Ghana Church and were made under the following items: (a) 10% of the church tithe income; (b) payments to Dominion Publishing House (DPH) in Nigeria for books and cassettes; (c) Shiloh Camp Tent Income; (d) contributions to the upkeep of Covenant University in Nigeria and (e) offering and honorarium to the Prophet (leader) of the Church of Nigeria.
The SFO ‘s Report also stated that "a number of the findings already indicate serious violations of the Exchange Control Act, 1961, Act 71 and Table B of the Second Schedule of the Companies Code, Act 179 which constitute the regulation under which the Living Faith World Outreach Church was registered." The SFO also recovered a total of ¢562.98million to the IRS and SSNIT. The breakdown reveals ¢356.5million being PAYE due to the IRS and ¢206.4 million due to SSNIT.
The SFO said the investigations will continue to establish the full extent of the financial operations of the Winners church and the other new churches in the charismatic category, in view of the above findings which seem to indicate that even religious organisations may cross the line between charitable business and financial impropriety."
