By Spy Uganda
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame says he might introduce a tax on church collections, seeking to tame what has turned out to be extortion and exploitative tendencies by evangelical clerics.
In his first address after taking a new oath of office this week, the Rwandan head of state, strongly criticised church leaders who masquerade under the cover of God to manipulate and “squeeze money” from people.
“These unscrupulous people who use religion and churches to manipulate and fleece people of their money and other things, will force us to introduce a tax, so churches pay tax on the money they get from people,” he said.
Rwandan authorities said this week they had closed down about 8,000 churches for operating illegally and not fulfilling infrastructural requirements.
Speaking after presiding over the swearing-in ceremony of the re-appointed Prime Minister, Edouard Ngirente, and new members of parliament, Mr Kagame said he would go for more rogue preachers and their churches.
“If truth is to be told, these mushrooming churches are just there to squeeze even the last penny from poor Rwandans, as those who own them enrich themselves,” said Mr Kagame.
Rwanda has recently seen an increasing number of Pentecostal churches, many of which build their churches on prosperity gospel doctrine, attracting more poor folk. “We have seen cases of these cult leaders even leading people to their deaths, through manipulation and brainwashing them to starve to death and do all sorts of other things, it has happened in other countries.
It is not just Rwanda that has struggled with regulating preachers. Uganda announced last week it will publish a white paper on regulating worship, after reports of extortion by clerics.
In Kenya, the courts are currently trying Paul Mackenzie and his followers said to have brainwashed worshippers into deadly fasting.
According to Rwanda Governance Board (RGB), the regulatory body for religious organisations, some 59.3 percent of over 13,000 churches inspected in the last month have been closed down due to non-compliance.
“The closure of these places of worship came after routine inspections as per our mandate, we had given these churches ample time to improve but they didn’t so we had to shut them down,” said Usta Kaitesi, the CEO of RGB.
I have been browsing online greater than three hours today, but I never found any interesting article like yours. It is pretty price sufficient for me. Personally, if all webmasters and bloggers made just right content material as you probably did, the internet will likely be a lot more useful than ever before.
It is really a nice and useful piece of info. I’m glad that you shared this useful info with us. Please keep us up to date like this. Thanks for sharing.
I am not sure where you’re getting your info, but great topic. I needs to spend some time learning much more or understanding more. Thanks for fantastic info I was looking for this info for my mission.
Lovely just what I was looking for.Thanks to the author for taking his time on this one.
Can I just say what a relief to find someone who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I cant believe youre not more popular because you definitely have the gift.
Pretty section of content. I just stumbled upon your web site and in accession capital to assert that I acquire actually enjoyed account your blog posts. Anyway I’ll be subscribing to your feeds and even I achievement you access consistently rapidly.
I’m not sure why but this website is loading incredibly slow for me. Is anyone else having this issue or is it a issue on my end? I’ll check back later and see if the problem still exists.
I really enjoy looking through on this website , it contains good content.
I conceive this website has got very superb composed content posts.
Sweet blog! I found it while surfing around on Yahoo News. Do you have any suggestions on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Thank you
Good day! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be ok. I’m definitely enjoying your blog and look forward to new posts.
I am continuously browsing online for tips that can facilitate me. Thx!
It is in point of fact a great and useful piece of info. I am satisfied that you shared this useful info with us. Please stay us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.
Well I really liked studying it. This information provided by you is very constructive for accurate planning.
Hi! Do you know if they make any plugins to assist with SEO? I’m trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I’m not seeing very good success. If you know of any please share. Appreciate it!
An impressive share, I just given this onto a colleague who was doing a little analysis on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast because I found it for him.. smile. So let me reword that: Thnx for the treat! But yeah Thnkx for spending the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love reading more on this topic. If possible, as you become expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more details? It is highly helpful for me. Big thumb up for this blog post!
This really answered my problem, thank you!
Enjoyed examining this, very good stuff, thanks.
Whats up are using WordPress for your site platform? I’m new to the blog world but I’m trying to get started and set up my own. Do you need any coding expertise to make your own blog? Any help would be really appreciated!
Great remarkable things here. I?¦m very satisfied to see your article. Thank you a lot and i’m having a look forward to contact you. Will you kindly drop me a mail?
Fantastic site you have here but I was wondering if you knew of any message boards that cover the same topics discussed in this article? I’d really like to be a part of online community where I can get opinions from other experienced people that share the same interest. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thank you!