Ramaphosa charms Shembe church with expensive gifts
● President Cyril Ramaphosa took his election campaign to the Shembe Nazareth Baptist Church yesterday and announced that the ANC would build a 1,000-sleeper building for the church as a donation.
Ramaphosa visited Ebuhleni, the home of the church in Inanda, where he also donated a loud-hailer. He said the church leader had asked for the gifts during the ANC’s last visit.
The Shembe church has millions of members across Southern Africa and its leaders have influence on their congregations, which is why political parties frequent it ahead of elections to seek endorsement.
His visit came just two weeks after former president Jacob Zuma visited the church and asked for their blessings and prayers for his return to the Union Buildings as president.
Some analysts have attributed the ANC’s poor performance in the last election in KwaZulu-Natal to the party’s perceived endorsement of a faction opposed to Ebuhleni leader Mduduzi Shembe.
“Today I brought plans for the building that will be placed before the church leadership — the engineering and architects’ plans,” said Ramaphosa. The project will build a 1,000-capacity sleeping building for congregants when there are church services.”
Ramaphosa said the loud-hailer and the building to accommodate congregants for sleepover services were a request from the church to the ANC.
“I came here in July as a president of the ANC and we discussed a number of things with the church, and they needed assistance with certain things that have to do with the church. We promised that we would help them and we did. They needed a very good speaker system and we were able to help them with that. They also wanted us to help them with things that have to do with accommodation when people come for prayers and we are looking into that.”
Ramaphosa delegated ANC elections head Mdumiseni Ntuli to be part of the process on behalf of the ANC.
“We have engineers and architects that have inspected the building site — when everything has been approved the work can then start when we get permission, and this will not only serve congregants but construction will create temporary jobs for people of this area.”
The president said this was as far as the ANC could go in meeting the church’s needs. He said the government would look into requests such as “roads to be properly constructed here”.
Ramaphosa’s visit to the church fell on a Saturday, a day when congregants meet. He received a warm welcome, including from Mduduzi Shembe.
Ramaphosa, like Zuma, also requested prayers for divine favour. “I am here to ask for blessings, that all things go well and there is peace in our country, that our people live in peace and those seeking jobs get them, those who want to study get to do so,” he said.
After the service, the president said he was delighted to have been part of the service.
“They are a big church and a big congregation. I’d also come for prayer for the government, for the country, for blessings — for the many processes that we are going to get involved in such as elections and many other things. And also for the church to pray for peace in our country, and the leader of the church did pray for that. I am delighted,” he said.