Cleric urges PF administration to allocate 10% of national budget to Churches

A cleric in Zambia has called on the new Patriot Front (PF) government to consider giving 10 per cent of the national budget to the church in Zambia. Father Laston Lupupa SJ, Parish Priest at Our Heavenly Father Catholic Church in Chelston, Lusaka made the call during his homily on Sunday this week. The homily focused on a reading from the gospel of Matthew in which Jesus told the Pharisees and the Herodians to give to "Caeser what belonged to Ceaser and to God what belonged to God'' when they confronted him on the question of paying taxes.

Fr. Lupupa said that it was an obligation for citizens to pay taxes to the government and the responsibility of the government to ensure that the funds that were collected in taxes were used for the welfare of all citizens. He urged the new PF government to ensure that monetary resources collected in form of taxes are used prudently and ploughed back into projects that would benefit all Zambians.

He observed that that the declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation by the Second Republican President Fredrick. T. J. Chiluba has not been accompanied by allocation of monetary resources in the national budget to the Churches. Most Churches depend on donations from well wishes to carry out capital projects such as building new church structures, hospitals and schools. He further pointed out that despite providing health and education services especially in rural areas, most church missions received very little financial support from the government.  He therefore implored the new administration to consider allocating about 10 per cent of the national budget to Churches.