SOUTH AFRICA: CHURCH LEADERS IN CAPE TOWN PROTEST AGAINST COVID-19 CORRUPTION

Africa Coronavirus (COVID-19) World

Tue 15 September 2020:

The campaign follows the moral call against COVID-19 corruption issued on August 7 this year, by the group of six organisations

The South African Council of Churches (SACC) hosted a silent protest against COVID-19 corruption outside St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town on Tuesday, September 15.

Church leaders, who gathered for a silent protest in Cape Town against alleged COVID-19 corruption, say corruption is a sin.  About 30 clergies alternated their protest in groups of 15 each outside the St George’s Cathedral and the provincial parliament, in an effort to observe COVID-19 safety protocols.

Prompting the clerics throughout the country to make their voices heard. They say corruption is a crime and sin. Reverend Dr Lionel Louw says the corrupt are enriching themselves at the expense of the poor.

“The clergy are exposed directly to what happens in communities at the grassroots level and so they are very aware of the extent of suffering that occurs by virtue of resources that should have been sent to communities in order to improve services, and more particularly during this COVID season when people were actually dying we have had people doing corruption, enriching themselves”

“We are calling it a ‘performance of silence’ because the churches are speechless at this level of revolting fraud,” said Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, General Secretary of the SACC.

The campaign follows the moral call against COVID-19 corruption issued on August 7 this year, by the group of six organisations who call themselves the Moral Call Collective. The collective is made up of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, the Foundation for Human Rights, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and the South African Council of Churches.

The Western Cape Church leaders carry banners during a silent demonstration held by South African Council of Churches (SACC) against the government’s new type of coronavirus (Covid-19) corruption, with the slogan “Corruption is not our heritage”, in Cape Town, South Africa on September 15, 2020. Photojournalist Xabiso Mkhabela

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