Attorney General Justin Muturi on Wednesday, May 10, faulted the existing laws as the reason for the government's failure to reign in on religious groups that preach false doctrines, in particular the Shakahola massacre.
Speaking while appearing before the Senate Ad-hoc Committee, Muturi stated that his office and the Registrar of Societies lacked powers to prevent cult-like religion.
He noted that the Societies Act was weak and mundane - urging Parliament to liaise with the executive in a bid to restore sanity to the religious sector.
“The Act that allows for registration of such groups is loose. It was enacted over 50 years ago and it is not fit for purpose because there have been major developments ever since then,” AG Muturi stated.
‘’One must be a miracle worker or an angel to have a reasonable belief that something suspicious is happening in Shakahola forest," he added.
He further revealed that the provisions within the Act hampered the capacity of the Office of Registrar General from punishing such religious acts that violated the law.
Alluding to this, he pointed out that his office had developed a draft Bill to address the loopholes in the current law.
Further, AG Muturi noted that the Office of Registrar General held records of over 100,000 registered societies out of which 40,000 were religious in nature.
He faulted the process of registering these associations manually - noting that it led to non-compliance owing to the lapses involved in terms of inadequate human resources to scrutinise the files.
‘’If there was some element of robustness in regulation one would have been able to detect some of the underhand activities that bodies that have registered are engaged in.
"We need to digitize the office of the registrar because going through 100,000 files to see who has not filed taxes would require a huge workforce,” he stated.
The Ad Hoc Committee of the Senate is investigating the deaths in Shakahola village, Kilifi County, related to the activities of Good News International Ministries linked to Pastor Paul Mackenzie, who is currently in police custody.
While appearing before the Committee, the Registrar of Societies Jane Joram revealed they had written to churches linked to Mackenzie and Pastor Ezekiel Odero to show legitimate reasons for not closing their institutions for failure to file tax returns.
“We have taken the liberty to write to the Good News Church to show cause why they should not be deregistered because of the activities that have come to the fore, the cancellation notice is usually a 30-day notice,” she stated.
