The central African country’s civil society watchdog has been
dragged to court, accused of meddling in church administration affairs.
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| Congregation at Zion Temple Celebration Center in Kigali. Six Bishops accuse Rwanda Governance Board for blocking them from removing Bishop Dr Paul Gitwaza from being the legal representative of the church. Faith Reporters |
By Damas Marcel Muyango
The Rwanda Governance Board (RGB), the country’s civil society watchdog
in the central African nation, has been dragged to court in a case of religion
administration affairs.
Six bishops from Authentic Word Ministries also known as the Zion Temple
Celebration Centre have sued the governance board for “acting outside the law
when the body stopped [them] from removing Dr. Paul Gitwaza from being Zion
Temple’s legal representative”.
On 4th January 2023 at Gasabo Intermediate Court in Kigali, the six
bishops argued that the governance board deprived them of their constitutional
rights claiming that the board barred them from exercising their
responsibilities as administrators at Zion Temple.
The six co-founders of Zion Temple had addressed a letter to the board in
February 2022 informing it that they had removed Dr Paul Gitwaza from being the
head and legal representative of Zion Temple on grounds of embezzlement and
nepotism.
The letter claimed that Gitwaza clandestinely sold off the evangelical
church properties in Rwanda and handled Zion Temple as a personal business.
In response, the governance board quashed the bishops’ decision, calling
it a “decision with no merit” and ordered the bishops to “immediately stop acts
of usurping power”.
The governance board went ahead to alert law enforcement agencies
including the Rwanda Investigative Bureau (RIB) and the police to enforce the
governance board’s decision.
This, according to the plaintiff, infringed rights to make
administrative decisions on administration matters in the church that has
branches in Belgium, Canada, Britain, Sweden, Tanzania and over 40 branches in
Rwanda.
The State attorney representing the governance board presented to the
court an unknown document purportedly signed by a public notary to the effect
that there was a new board in existence at Zion Temple.
The document was new in the board’s submission in the court system and
ignited controversy until the court rescheduled the trial conference for 16th
February for the plaintiff to first study the document and submit a response to
it.
The case is expected to establish it clearly if the six bishops who are
also the plaintiff have administrative responsibilities at Authentic Word
Ministries which has.
It is widely accepted that the original board of directors of Authentic
Word Ministries/Zion Temple Celebration Centre include Bishops namely Claude
Djessa, Charles Mudakikwa, Dieudonne Vuningoma, Richard Muya, Pierre Kaberuka,
Paul-Daniel Kukimunu and Dr. Paul Gitwaza.
In 2018, the government of Rwanda closed nearly 10,000 churches
that did not meet the standards the former had set for church facilities at a
time the Seventh-day Adventist Church had convened in Kigali to celebrate
religious liberties in Africa.
In October 2020, the Rwanda government dissolved the entire
administration committee of the Association of the Pentecostal Churches in
Rwanda (ADEPR).
In March 2022, the government in the smallest country found in the East
African Community block banned the Muslim call to worship known as Adhan on grounds
of noise pollution.
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