PARTICIPATE IN DEVELOPMENT, MASUPA TELLS THE CHURCH

By Jessica Mwansa

WE call on all the church to actively take part in the country’s economic development because Zambia is a country for every citizen, Independent Churches of Zambia (ICOZ) President Bishop David Masupa has said.

Speaking to The Scoop, Bishop Masupa said the role that the church ought to play in socio-economic transformation was an instrumental one.

He said churches should therefore involve themselves in entrepreneurship activities than looking for hand-outs and that they should also be involved in agriculture and form up cooperatives to contribute to the economic growth of the country.

 “The churches should get involved in the growth of the economy because we need to have large volumes of income coming from a large population. We can engage in holding workshops or conferences on socio-economic challenges and how best they can be addressed.

“As the church we have a mandate of adding to the country’s development by contributing to the moral growth of the nation while we continue to promote the gospel values of respect for life, integrity, justice and equality,” Bishop Masupa said.

“Churches are strong drivers of development as they have built schools, places of worship, orphanages, and healthcare facilities, among others. We have also been partnering with the Government through the provision of health services, fighting HIV and AIDs through counselling and testing as well as administering anti-retroviral therapy,” he added.

He said there was nothing more encouraging in the country’s development than investing in the opportunities that empowered people at the point of their own ingenuity.

“Our partnership with the Government is based on the realization that while the institutions of the Government are there to serve people in terms of structures, there has been limitation compared to the churches that have establishments in remote areas. The Government should therefore promote certain empowerment initiatives through the churches because we are there to fill in the gap where it is absent,” he said.

He said deliberate efforts by the Government in supporting community level initiatives would go a long way in developing strong self-supporting communities as well as strengthen the growth of the economy.

“At the end of the day, both the churches and the Government serve the same people. We need to support the country’s development in order to improve people’s livelihoods,” he said.