Churches call on Zuma to quit, target corruption
FOLLOWING an emergency meeting on Friday, Nelson Mandela Bay spiritual leaders have joined the call by civil society for President Jacob Zuma to stand down, but also launched their own investigation into the effects of corruption in the metro.
Senior church leaders in Port Elizabeth declared their support of a civil society mass action campaign that was launched on the steps of the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg to oust Zuma.
The campaign followed the Constitutional Court judgment that Zuma had violated the constitution in the way he dealt with public protector Thuli Madonsela’s report on upgrades at his Nkandla homestead.
The leaders who attended an urgent meeting of the Nelson Mandela Bay Leadership Group (NMBLG), which represents most of the churches in the metro, also called for the sacking of all corrupt politicians and government officials.
Bishop Lunga ka Siboto, the Presiding Bishop of the Ethiopian Episcopal Church, who called the meeting a week ahead of the group’s monthly prayer and consultation meeting, emphasised that while the group was concerned about poor governance and rampant state corruption in South Africa, it was not aligned in any way with any political party.
The new anti-Zuma mass action campaign (known as “South Africa We Demand”) which the Port Elizabeth church leaders have endorsed includes church leaders like the Rev Moss Ntlha, of the Evangelical Alliance of SA, and Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, as well as political and business leaders. The campaign entails mass action this month. Siboto said the leadership group meeting had agreed to implement a three-prong action plan to address critical governance failures and corruption, especially in Nelson Mandela Bay.
He said the group would request meetings with local, provincial and possibly national government leaders to address the corruption crisis.
It would also draft a questionnaire which would ask every church in the city to engage its members in a conversation about “our constitutional crisis”.
