Millions of ADEPR faithful are probably emotionally and spiritually exhausted by endless wrangles that have dogged successive leadership teams at the top echelons of the umbrella of Pentecostal churches.

The latest twist in a series of sagas that have alienated key church ministers and inflicted deep scars in a community of two million members saw Rwanda Governance Board last Friday dissolve the leadership of the Association of the Pentecostal Churches of Rwanda (ADEPR).

The directive concerned members of the general assembly, board of directors (or administrative council), executive bureau, and the conflict resolution committee. The independent audit committee is the only team not disbanded.

The dismissal is a continuation of a pattern that has seen top leaders of the church removed from office on grounds of alleged gross abuse, some ending up in courts of law.

RGB’s intervention followed years of "governance inadequacies and infighting” that sowed division and threatened social harmony among the faithful, it said.

The regulator also accused the church bigwigs of disregarding the former’s repeated advice, adding that RGB and other institutions had been receiving petitions from members imploring for government intervention to help restore a sense of sanity.

RGB named Aurélie Umuhoza, who was until last week director of economics and finance in the now-disbanded executive bureau, as the interim overseer of administrative and financial matters until a new interim executive committee takes over on Thursday, October 8.

But little is known about the next course of action beyond installation of interim leaders, with RGB insisting that a durable solution ultimately lies in the hands of ADEPR members.

"What really happens next will be discussed with the interim leadership once it is in place,” said Frédéric Ntawukurirayo, the information and communication specialist at RGB.

But he said that only an interim executive bureau will be put in place.

"My job is just to be in charge until Thursday (today) when a new team comes in,” Umuhoza told The New Times on Tuesday when asked to comment on the possible way-forward.

Although what happens next after an interim executive committee takes over on Thursday is still unclear, the leadership team is expected to organise elections for a substantive bureau and other top-level organs.

‘The elephant in the room’

But will this mark the end of ADEPR woes?

"Absolutely not,” said a source who has worked for ADEPR for more than 10 years. "New leaders could be the beginning of the end of these problems but they’re not coming in as magic bullets.”

The source, who preferred anonymity because staff are not allowed to speak about their employer in the media without express authorisation, said: "These issues did not emerge yesterday, they have been there for decades and outlive several successive leadership teams.”

The elephant in the room is a structure that does not allow for good governance, proper accountability and checks and balances, the source said.

A choir leads thousands of ADEPR faithful in worship during the celebration of the church’s 75th anniversary at Amahoro Stadium, Kigali on November 21, 2015. / Photo: File

In theory, the source explained, the general assembly (composed of 99 members) is the supreme organ of the church and should exercise authority over both the board of directors [or conseil d’administration (CA) in French] and the executive bureau. But, in reality, the source noted, "the executive bureau dominates all the other organs.”

"Take the board, for example. It has 18 members, including five who comprise the executive bureau (mostly pastors) and another five regional pastors who are appointed or removed by the executive bureau. That leaves eight positions, which are filled by lay Christians,” the source said. "Even those eight, because they are lay Christians, they will generally hardly question or contradict the bureau, which is headed by a senior pastor, who also serves as the official legal representative of the institution.”

"There is no difference with the general assembly. The same executive bureau dominates. The Legal Representative (head of the bureau) is the one who presents reports to the general assembly, not the board chair.

"In addition, aside from the fact that all five members of the bureau are members of the general assembly, the latter also includes 48 pastors and technicians who are appointed by the executive bureau.”

The source said: "The executive bureau has overarching powers, you can say they supervise themselves. They appoint and dismiss their own supervisors. It’s hard to talk of accountability in a place where conflict of interest abounds.”

"It creates the perfect breeding ground for abuse of office, incompetence, mismanagement, corruption, and all manner of excesses…and there is impunity.” For an organisation that manages up to Rwf23 billion in annual budget, "this is outrageous”.

Billions of francs worth of ‘mind-boggling’ operations

This publication learnt that last year alone ADEPR collected up to Rwf9 billion in annual offerings from believers spread out in 3422 chapels and 424 parishes across the country. The organisation also runs 156 primary schools, 52 secondary schools, three health centres and a hospital. It also boasts a string of businesses, some of which were set up from contributions of church members.

The church secretariat spends some Rwf480 million in monthly staff salaries for a total of 5020 employees. In addition, ADEPR manages 104 Compassion charitable projects, which employ another 416 people.

"The scale of ADEPR operations is mind-boggling, yet the organisation is built in such a way that a small team that makes up the executive bureau has a free hand to do the strangest things without anyone questioning them,” our source said. "The other day they dismissed members of an internal audit team because they had declined to revise a report their bosses did not like.”

The New Times learnt that indeed two internal auditors were fired in controversial circumstances early this year but Euphrem Karuranga, who was the Legal Representative and Spokesperson until Friday, rejected the claim that the duo was dismissed because of the said report. "That is not true, the issue was that they put their personal grievances in the report, which amounted to a breach of audit guidelines.”

The second major issue is that ADEPR leadership has continued to sideline people with sound education, our source continued. "They will tell you that there are young, educated people at different levels of the church, from the Umudugudu level, to parish, district (also referred to as the ‘local church’), province (ururembo) to the national level, but the truth is that they don’t make the real decisions, they report to a certain pastor and that is the person that calls the shots.”

At one point, the source noted, a group of senior pastors, motivated by a desire to protect themselves, created a college, the Kigali Faculty of Evangelical Theology, so they can upgrade their academic qualifications but the school fell short of licencing requirements.

Subsequently, Higher Education Council was compelled to suspend the school on the eve of its inaugural graduation ceremony in March 2019.

"The crux of the matter is that the church is held hostage by its own leaders,” added the source, a head of department at the Kimihurura-based ADEPR headquarters. "The executive bureau does whatever they please, sometimes individual members may collude or disagree but in most cases they are preoccupied with pursuit of selfish interests.”

Did RGB intervene prematurely?

However, Karuranga downplayed the role of the ADEPR structures in fuelling instability in the church leadership. "The structures are clear, right from the grassroots to the top, there would be no problem if people followed the rules.”

He also said RGB’s intervention last week was unwarranted "since we were still using our internal systems and procedures to address our problems.” By the time the regulator swung the axe, a bruising battle had unfolded between Rev. Karuranga and his deputy Rev. John Karangwa, with each of the other three members of the executive bureau picking a side.

RGB’s Ntawukuriryayo rejected the claim that the regulator intervened prematurely, saying their action was informed by a litany of complaints, petitions and disputes that spanned more than two years. "Some of the petitions came from some of the leaders themselves, and RGB engaged them on several occasions but they failed to address the issues,” he said.

The regulator was forced to intervene to prevent further escalation, he added.

Callixte Kayigamba, the immediate former ADEPR board chair, was cagey when asked to comment on claims that organisational structure was at the heart of the turmoil that has characterised the church for a while now, but noted, "I think everything starts with the rules that govern the institution.”

"Reform is always work in progress,” he said. "I believe the next generation of leaders will take a close look at the (ADEPR’s) legal framework and if they think it needs to be revised so be it, it’s after then that they can look at the structure.”

Asked to comment on whether RGB’s intervention came too early, he said, "They are the regulators and, as the authority that oversees faith-based organisations, they have the right to step in and do as the law says. How do I start to question the timing of their decision? It was not premature.”