Proposed faith policy raises right questions but gets vague answers

It is a straight-faced deception that the observance of religious freedom, as a constitutional right, has been a given in Uganda. The deception aside, the National Religious and Faith Organisations (RFOs) Policy 2019, is worth all individual and institutional rejection.
Framed as a regulatory policy, the document gets the questions somewhat right, but intentionally sets the answers rather vaguely.

It is irrefutable that religious leaders and institutions have fleeced the masses of all ages, classes and genders, but to claim that there is “manipulation of the flock through unethical behaviour of the RFO leaders” is to both ignore the complicity of the masses, and also feign understanding of what is ethical and unethical. In fact, the relevancy of the Directorate (and ministry) of Ethics and Integrity is a conversation that we need to have soon.

Nonetheless, as the policy admits, there has been a failed working relationship between the State and the spiritualities. But instead of seeking an engagement with all the stakeholders, the policy pretentiously assumes that the government has a clear pro-people national development agenda that the RFO leaders need to aid it achieve. Undeniable is the urgent mass desire for democratic operation of RFOs, but the means to that reality should remain as democratic as the dream itself.

The language of the policy, which provides for retaining of several liberties such as self-regulation, is a bait for the unsuspecting subject. That shortly into the policy document, the demanded accountability from the RFO leaders is again placed into the hands of “God and the people”, makes one wonder why then the State is intervening.

What is changing about whom the religious institutions and leaders are accountable to? If nothing is changing, what then is the aim of the policy? Precisely put, the policy seeks to legitimate another pickpocket – the State. The only difference is that the State’s form of fleecing the masses shall be better structured, giving it a legal mandate to take from the loot of the RFOs. The RFOs shall be tax collectors for the State. The victim/survivor of the manipulation shall remain one – the people.

In posing as a saviour of the masses, the State is only reinforcing the subversive activities of the rotten apples masquerading as religious heads. The policy’s idea of granting the organisations room to “effectively contribute to national and district development in a harmonised manner” carries the misnomer logic of the whole policy. Placing the policy under the Office of the President is only meant to intimidate the organisations into submission – a likely possibility.

For the policy to be people-centred, it has to come from them. The challenge is that to reject the proposed policy is to sustain the existing parasitic spiritual activities. However, in this particular case, it is no longer better the devil you know, but better the lesser devil.

Mwine-Kyarimpa,
[email protected]