Ruto reveals next course of action with report on churches regulation

President William Ruto on Thursday evening announced that his administration is in the process of forming a committee to implement a taskforce report that recommended regulation of religious outfits.

During a town hall meeting in Kisumu dubbed the Lake Region Bulletin, Ruto who was confronted by a resident of Kisumu on the mushrooming of churches that had created a lack of order in residential areas said he is aware that religious outfits must be regulated to bring order and sanity.

"I had received a report on the regulation of religious outfits. We are in the process of forming a committee to work on the report so that we can subject it to parliament," said Ruto.

Ruto acknowledged that his administration will stop those who use religion to cause harm and death to Kenyans.

"I have been given a report on how we can work with our churches so that there be order and to ensure that few people do not use religion to commit crimes resulting to death," added Ruto.

The Head of State who is on a tour of the Lake Victoria region was referring to a task force that recommended a hybrid regulation framework that would hand the government greater oversight to curtail the spread of cults and financial predatory practices prevalent in some churches in Kenya.

For instance, a proposed Religious Affairs Commission will provide oversight over religious organisations and work in tandem with umbrella religious associations to strengthen self-regulation.

While presenting the report to the president on July 30, 2024, the taskforce found that there was a lack of a distinct legal framework tailored to the unique needs of religious organisations, unclear laws on crimes that could be considered religious and a general lack of oversight on TV and radio programmes that propagate exploitative ideologies.

The presidential task force was set up in May 2023 following the shocking discovery of mass graves containing 400 bodies suspected to be faithful of Good News International Church in a forest in Kenya’s South coast.

The founder of the religious cult, Paul Mackenzie, and the leadership, manipulated hundreds of people to starve to death as a means to escape an apocalypse and to quicken ‘meeting Jesus’. A majority of the bodies exhumed were of women and children who MacKenzie insisted were to precede the men in their passage to the afterlife. Autopsy results showed that many of the victims died of starvation while others were strangled or suffocated.

The task force, chaired by Rev. Mutava Musyimi, recommended the drafting and enactment of laws specific for religious organisations to “provide clarity on appropriate legal personality, registration requirements, and clarity on crimes/offences committed under the guise/pretext of religion.”

In a media interview soon after presenting the report to the president, Rev. Musyimi said the proposed Religious Commission would include members of religious associations such as the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) and the Evangelical Association of Kenya (EAK) to help tighten the oversight role of the bodies while also having the machinery and intelligence of the government to protect citizens from rogue pastors and churches.

“We are proposing a 9-member commission, five of whom will come from the religious sector but also have government representatives such as enforcement and intelligence officers. When you bring the two together, you are now in a space where you make it possible to make the people feel safer because the religious organisations have been vetted by a body that has capacity and competence,” explained Rev. Musyimi.