Many places of worship across the country are still closed despite the Government giving them the green light to reopen a few days back, provided they met conditions in line with Covid-19 guidelines. As prescribed by the Government, the reopening is to be done on individual basis after inspection by local authorities to ascertain if a particular facility fulfils the necessary preventive measures against Covid-19. Currently, a number of places of worship have been inspected but very few have been opened. What went wrong? There seems to be a mix of factors that are keeping the places of worship closed. When The New Times talked to the Ministry of Local Governments (MINALOC), the story we got from them is that the closed facilities have not yet fulfilled the requirements, or have not been inspected yet. Christians during Holy Communion service at Regina Pacis Catholic Church in Remera, Kigali on July 19. Photo: Craish Bahizi. However, when we talked to clerics, they presented us with a slightly different narrative. Clerics, along with local leaders are part of the mandated teams that do inspections at worship venues to ascertain their readiness before they can be sanctioned to accept congregations. One clergyman who has taken part in the inspection told The New Times on Monday, July 27 that the reopening of places of worship is not entirely dependent on fulfilling the stipulated preventive measures. “They (places of worship) may even be having everything needed, but we may not open them all at once,” he said. “The idea is that we allow a few places at a time, and then watch how it goes as we carry on with the process of reopening more,” he added. In addition, he also shed some light on the inspection process, and how it may cause some delays in the reopening process. “You may for instance find that a particular church is located in place that is relatively far, and cannot be easily reached by the inspectors. This can lead to inspectors postponing inspection to the following week,” he said. He however weighed in on the need to take very cautious measures for reopening, and echoed that he doesn’t see the waiting process as a big challenge, since safety is important too. When we talked to MINALOC, however, they mainly connected the continued closure of places of worship to the fact that they have not yet fulfilled the requirements “That is why some churches are not yet open, because they don’t have the all necessary equipment,” an official in MINALOC told this newspaper. “Our intention is just to facilitate the churches to resume their activities, but before they resume they have to comply with all requirements for fighting the coronavirus,” they added. Meanwhile, late last week, Pastor Joel Sengoga, the Secretary-General of Rwanda Inter-Religious Council told The New Times that local authorities seem to be asking for more measures to reopen places of worship, than the requirements that were originally issued by the Ministry of Local Governments. “What is evident is that the written guidelines from the ministry are not those that the local authorities are asking for. They have added some things which were not there,” he said. However, Dr Usta Kayitesi, the Chief Executive Officer of the Rwanda Governance Board told The New Times the instructions she is aware of are those issued by MINALOC.
