A vehicle that the Lighthouse Chapel International (LCI) gave to Kwame Yirenkyi Ampofo, a former church bishop, when he served the organization, has been withdrawn.
The Auto Theft Unit of the police Criminal Investigations Department (CID), according to Mr. Kwame Ampofo, an engineer by training, is investigating him for stealing the said vehicle.
According to him, the Chevrolet Tahoe was presented to him in 2016 after being used from 2013 to 2016 by Mrs. Adelaide Heward-Mills, the church’s founder’s wife. After dismissing him due to confusion between him and the church’s leadership in 2022, he claimed the Healing Jesus branch of the church gave it to him as a gift.
The church claimed that although it had not yet given Bishop Ampofo possession of the car, he had already started to criticize it. As a result, the church decided to cancel the gift.
“However, before we could actually effect the transfer of the ownership of the car to you legally, you began to attack and insult the church which has been so benevolent to you. This was both a surprise and a shock to the Lighthouse Chapel International in the light of the long history of kindness and honour shown to you,” the church said in a July 4, 2023, letter signed by the Convener of the Bishop’s Council, Bishop Dr. Kofi Hene Asare.
The church stated that although it had initially informed the bishop of the donation, it was free to change its mind.
“… The church is entitled to change its mind on decisions about its intentions on any subject. The church no longer wishes to give you the car because we have had a change of mind and because we never actually transferred ownership to you. We WILL NOT transfer the ownership of this car to you,” it said.
Following what it claims “are based on multiple church documents, meetings, and the values of our organization,” the church fired Mr. Ampofo in December 2022.
Kwame Ampofo, 52, was a bishop overseeing the Nsawam region of the church he had joined in 1995 up until his removal.
He claimed he was chosen to serve as a lay pastor in 1999 and left his job to devote himself entirely to the church in 2006. He received his reverend minister ordination in 1997 and his episcopal ordination in 2017.
Since his dismissal in December 2022, Mr. Kwame Ampofo has abandoned the title of bishop that the church had bestowed upon him and has taken to social media to refute what he claims are lies spread against him by some of the church’s leading bishops.
