The Lusaka City Council (LCC), has failed to discipline the unregistered churches with no track record for fear of being labeled as people who do not believe in God.
The Council of Churches in Zambia – CCZ, one of the church’s mother bodies, has been calling on the government to protect citizens from unscrupulous individuals pretending to have powers to deal with people’s problems.
The organization has been urging the government to come up with measures to control the operation of churches in the country, saying the conduct of some churches is tarnishing the image of the church as News headlines of clerics engaging in illegal and undercover activities in the name of the church have become common in the country.
CCZ general secretary Fr. Emanuel Chikoya expressed concern that LCC is more focused on disciplining businesses operating without licenses a situation he believed is the major contributing factor to the current mushrooming of Churches in Zambia especially in the shanty compound which he said is a danger to society.
Reacting to this in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, LCC public relations manager Chola Mwamba confirmed that the authority already has complaints from members of the public on churches operating in residential areas and that the authority is working on how best they are going to carry out their enforcement. “In this Nation, when one talks negatively about Godly things people would rise against that person.”
Mwamba however, said the local authority is not going to threaten unregistered churches for fear of being labeled as people who don’t believe in God by the members of the public.
“We already have complaints of churches operating in residential areas but when you talk negatively about Godly things you know how people would rise against you. So we are trying to see how best we can phrase that statement that will sit well with society and our norms but we are working on it. So there have been all sorts of complaints of churches in residential areas disturbing neighbors but then as a local authority we need to sit and analyze how we are going to do our enforcement,” she said.
Mwamba noted that it’s illegal for people to turn their homes into churches without informing the local authority.
“It’s illegal for people to turn their homes into churches without informing the local authority. As a local authority, we want sanity and ordering residential areas. So to turn your home into a church, you are actually disturbing your neighbors. As a local authority, we are going to ensure that we enforce the law where issues to do with gatherings are concerned and where issues to do with change of use are concerned. Because for you to turn your home into a church you have to apply for change of use and it has to pass through the council for it to be approved or disapproved,” she said.
“We are appealing to members of the public to follow the law where issues to do with change of use are concerned. When you are having a gathering of more than 20, or 30 people and you don’t have public facilities like washrooms would cholera spare you? So we are appealing to all those that are coming up with illegal churches to desist from doing so,” said Mwamba.
