Wed, 08 Mar 2017 10:40:18 +0000
By CHARLES MUSONDA
THE Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) has implored all Zambians to be wary of organisations using high poverty levels to entice them to attend their events.
CCZ general secretary Suzanne Matale said in a statement yesterday that the organisations in question were using such platforms to drive their agendas in the name of rendering help.
Reverend Matale said it was encouraging that Government had responded positively by suspending operations of the Church of Christ, which caused Monday’s stampede in which eight people died and 28 others were injured at the Olympic Youth Development Centre in Lusaka.
Rev. Matale said the development must serve as a warning to all unscrupulous organisations coming in the name of Christianity to take advantage of innocent people.
“Government must further ensure that all church events involving large gatherings are scrutinized to avoid a reoccurrence of such an incident,” she said.
Rev. Matale said the church mother body believed that the incident, which happened over food distribution, was a sign of high levels of poverty which had driven people to extreme desperation.
She said the incident must serve as an eye-opener to the Patriotic Front (PF) government that poverty levels in the country had reached alarming levels.
“Many signs of high poverty levels, such as increased criminal activities, have been overlooked by Government despite countless reminders from ordinary citizens, the civil society and the church that the socio-economic situation in the country is continuously deteriorating with no signs of improvement.
“We believe that the people of Zambia are entitled to a dignified way of life and not struggle to a point of sacrificing their lives to secure food after attaining independence many years ago,” Rev. Matale said.
She said all the meaningful development which Government was claiming to deliver to the people, especially infrastructure development across the country, was meaningless if citizens could not afford basic necessities of life.
