Kgosi wants govt to halt registration of churches

BAME PIET
Staff Writer | Wednesday November 3, 2010 00:00

 

Letlamoreng was supposed to table the motion yesterday but deferred it to today at the request of Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Peter Siele.

Speaking in an interview with Mmegi yesterday afternoon, Letlamoreng would however not discuss details saying it would be unfair to the House and government to hear about its (motion) intentions through newspapers. The motion comes at a time when there is a mushrooming of churches with reports of expatriate fraudsters ripping Batswana of their hard earned cash. Many of the pastors make a quick buck and disappear after passing the baton to their kinsmen. Many of the foreign-based churches do not want to employ Batswana pastors. The Churches are also conflict ridden.

Minister Siele confirmed that they are eagerly waiting to hear what Kgosi Letlamoreng will have to say in his motion. He revealed that his ministry has registered 1,317 religious societies but only 621 submit audited accounts to the Registrar of Societies, as required by law. He said that the ministry does not know the reasons for such failure and very soon the ministry would be forced to close down churches that do not comply.

'We do not know what it is that they are hiding if they can't show the registrar how many members they have, how much money they have collected, how much they are spending and how the resources are handled,' he said. The minister expressed sympathy for church members who give their hard earned cash to improve their churches only to be denied information on how their funds are spent.

He said that the law is clear that churches must submit their returns but the rate of compliance is very low. 'We remind them every year but the churches just do not want to comply with the law,' he said.

He attributed rampant church conflicts to failure to account to membership by the church leadership.