Johannesburg - The relationship of the governing party, the ANC, and the Christian community has become further strained by the Section 89 report on Phala Phala and the ANC closing ranks in Parliament to defend a public scandal.
The moral dilemma in the ANC has affected the party’s relations with the Christian community, with the International Federation of Christian Churches (IFCC) calling on Ramaphosa to be honest and take the country into his confidence concerning the million-dollar theft on his Phala Phala farm in 2020.
The moral dilemma further faced the party in Parliament during the week when party members were instructed to toe the party line and vote against the adoption of the Section 89 report.
The Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, voted against the party line and for conscience, but has now been put into a disciplinary process.
The IFCC said it was worried about the decay of morals and accountability among government officials. Surprisingly, the ANC was founded in the Free State more than 100 years earlier, in a church, by what were known at the time as Amakholwa, or believers.
“Since the release of the Section 89 report, the country has been in anxiety, worry, and some kind of vacuum that has created a lot of unnecessary speculation about the president. While we appreciate and understand that the president needs time to process the report, we ask that there no longer be delays in the president addressing the nation,” the IFCC said in a statement.
Relations between the churches have been widely strained, with some senior leaders in the church expressing that they were ashamed to be associated with the ANC because of numerous corruption scandals.
On Friday, the first day of the ANC’s five-day conference, an interdenominational prayer will take place, which will be followed by music items from a designated choir. For some, this is part of the remnants of the true ANC that were found in a church in 1912.
The Star