The Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Ahmed Ibrahim, has revealed that while more than 2,200 churches were officially registered in the Greater Accra Region as of 2025, many others across Ghana continue to operate without formal registration.
Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, Mr. Ibrahim outlined plans to introduce a nationwide digital registry aimed at streamlining church registration and generating reliable data for planning and oversight.
“We will establish a formal collaboration with the Registrar General’s Department, the Office of the Attorney General, and the Ministry of Justice to assess records of churches registered as companies limited by guarantee,” he told lawmakers.
He explained that the new system would operate at both national and local levels. “Metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies will maintain local registers of churches within their jurisdictions, while the proposed digital platform will allow churches to update their operational status in real time,” Mr. Ibrahim added.
Data from regional assessments indicate that about 98.1 per cent of churches in Greater Accra function as single-owner entities, with a small proportion affiliated with larger religious organisations. While the Registrar General’s Department does not publish a consolidated national figure, estimates suggest the number of churches across Ghana runs into several thousands.
Mr. Ibrahim emphasised that the broader objective of the reform is to ensure accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date data on churches, which is critical for governance, planning, and regulatory oversight.
Currently, religious affiliation statistics are compiled by the Ghana Statistical Service rather than through a registration database. The 2021 Population and Housing Census reports that 71.2 per cent of Ghanaians identify as Christians, including 31.6 per cent Pentecostal or Charismatic, 18.4 per cent Protestant, 10 per cent Catholic, and 11.2 per cent belonging to other Christian denominations.
The proposed digital registry will be linked to existing corporate records, allowing authorities to verify operational churches and enhance transparency in the rapidly expanding religious sector.
“This is a timely step toward modernising our administrative systems and strengthening accountability in the religious sector, which has experienced rapid growth in recent decades,” Mr. Ibrahim concluded.
ALSO READ:
