Now 6000 churches closed

This follows an exercise which started in February.

Affected churches are those found lacking basic infrastructure, poor hygiene, poor safety standards, lack of parking space, operating without licenses and operating in residential houses among others.

In Eastern Province alone, officials say that until Thursday last week, among 3,303 that were inspected, 1,415 were closed. Among those affected are 56 Catholic Churches, 109 Anglican Churches, 121 Adventist Seventh Day Churches and 21 Mosques.

In Southern Province, by the end of last week, 2,514 were inspected and 1269 were closed.

In Northern Province, they closed 775 churches among 2164 available in the whole province.

Recent statistics from City of Kigali show that 714 churches were closed among 1,351 which were inspected in three districts of the city.

The Western Province Governor Alphonse Munyentwali told IGIHE that until yesterday, 4228 churches were inspected among them 2142 were closed and others were given some time to continue operation as they implement recommendations.

However, these affected were given recommendations which they should put in place and be allowed to re-open.

Speaking to IGIHE, the Head of Political Parties and Civil Society Department at the Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) Justus Kangwagye said that the prevalence of the problem was caused by people who misinterpreted and violated laws regulating faith based organizations in Rwanda.

“The 2012 law states that when people want to pray, they come together and inform local leaders. However, some went beyond bounds and turned prayer groups into churches. When they pray freely, they do not remember that there are basic requirements,” he explained.

Kangwage said that some people started churches with a small number of worshippers, but did not consider expanding the building when the size of congregation grew.

“Whoever started with 20 Christians or 20 Muslims and they became 100 and did not consider changing the building was also affected,” he explained

He said that others got chance to develop and relocated to other places for them to be able to expand, but they did not inform local leaders, and were also closed.