Popular and wealthy Malawian Pastor, Prophet Bushiri, has been called out by South Africa’s Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, after he reportedly charged his members R25000 (N700,000) to sit next to him at a gala dinner next week.
According to CRL chairwoman, Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva who called upon those in power to intervene and people from the hands of Pastors, the ECG FundRaising Dinner With Major 1 is to be hosted on December 23 at the Pretoria Showgrounds, and the General Overseer of the Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) is already being divisive with it.
“We believe that every congregant should be allowed to attend fellowship in the name of God. Your socio-economic status should not exclude you from any participation in any religious programme. Church should be an equaliser and not a divider where the poor feel marginalised.
“We have repeatedly said that until parliament, specifically the portfolio committee on CoGTA (Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs), decides what to do with our recommendations, such problems and challenges will remain. If a Peer Review Committee had already been set up they would be dealing with this matter as peers of Prophet Bushiri.
“It is our belief that the greater majority of followers spend a lot of money trying to make sure that they are promoting the objectives of the church concerned. Our worst fear is that some of them may be spending money thinking that they may be buying attention and blessings from their religious leader” she said.
