Ihuoma Chiedozie, Enugu

The leadership of the Assemblies of God Church on Thursday denied reports that it misappropriated pension funds belonging to retired ministers of the church.

There were reports that the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, invited the General Superintendent, Rev. Dr. Chidi Okoroafor, and the General Treasurer, Reverend Vincent Alaje, over a petition by one Mr. C. N. Idris, in which the church leaders were accused by about 2,000 pastors of embezzling their pensions.

However, in a statement in Enugu, the church’s General Secretary, Rev. Dr. Godwin Amaowoh, said the Assemblies of God Church did not have a pension scheme, and as a result, there was no pension funds to be misappropriated.

Amaowoh linked the reports to the leadership crisis which had torn the church into two factions, led by Okoroafor and Rev. Paul Emeka, respectively.

Amaowoh, who is in Okoroafor’s camp, described reports of the alleged missing pensions as “a clever but criminal design by some elements to divert attention from some atrocities they committed while they held sway in the church.”

He said, “We do not have a pension scheme in the Assemblies of God Church, as we never, in the first instance, employ any minister – Assemblies of God Church only operates what we call Assemblies of God Ministers’ Benefit Scheme.

“Every minister with the Assemblies of God Church is on voluntary service. Therefore, we have no such thing as pension fund, rather we operate a welfare scheme for our ministers. All the ministers involved signed contracts in that regard in accordance with the provisions of the constitution of the Church.

“We follow the provisions of that constitution strictly. It is also apt to make it clear to the members of the public that we do not know about 2,000 ministers; perhaps they are with the disfellowshiped Rev. Paul Emeka.

“It also needs to be stated that the body administering, Assemblies of God Ministers’ Benefit Scheme is distinct from the General Council and is appropriately registered with the CAC.

“Emeka is not qualified for the welfare scheme because he took a loan of N17m from AG-Homes and instead of paying back the loan, he wrote a letter to AG-Homes that they should take his entitlement for the loan. His entitlement was not even up to that amount.

Cc: lalasticlala, Mynd44

http://punchng.com/assemblies-god-church-denies-stealing-ex-pastors-pensions/

It's okay for churches to operate as a business organisation, hell! Most of these churches are business organisations. But, when these churches starts to scam, then they're no different from our corrupt leaders.

Church stealing from pastors?

ok