Cardinal slams SADC for lack of vision

Ahead of the SADC Heads of State summit billed for Swaziland on August 30, a Roman Catholic clergy - Cardinal Wilfred Napier of Durban, South Africa – has slammed SADC leaders for not showing any commitment to regional integration. 

Napier was attending the Southern African Conference Bishop Conference (SACBC) composed of 33 Bishops from Botswana, South Africa and Swaziland in Gaborone which ended this week Wednesday. Speaking to Botswana Guardian, Napier said: “If there is a common vision, then one has to ask a question about the commitment to that vision. President Ian Khama has stood out as an exception. I hope he continues in that vein.” He said many of the presidents in the region seem to be looking at their own interests rather than that of their own countries and by extension of the region as well.

Church fails South Africa
Napier said that unlike during the apartheid era when the church was vocal, currently it has lost an opportunity to guide our governments. “I would say after 1994, the churches in general, made  the mistake of believing that the people we have been negotiating with and accompanying along towards independence, that we knew these people, we could trust them and therefore we could step back and not be as quite sharp and incisive in our analysis when things went wrong, as a result I think we have lost  an opportunity to guide our government.”

On Zuma and ANC
Napier dominated the debates at the beginning of the Nkandla and Gupta-gate scandals in his twitter page. He reiterated his position to Botswana Guardian: “I do not think anyone not President Jacob Zuma nor the leadership of the ANC has actually seen anything wrong with spending that amount of public money on a private individual’s property. They do not see anything wrong and that amazes and worries me. It means then that they seem to identify the individual and the party with the state so much so that the people do not matter.”

He said the results of the recent local government elections were a very good lesson for the ANC. As for Zuma and ANC’s refusal to have him step down after the ruling by South African Constitutional court that he failed to uphold and protect the constitution, Napier reacted: “They both lost their moral compass; they do not understand the seriousness of the trust that the country has entrusted them with its future. They do not seem to understand that they have a responsibility to answer and to be accountable to what is going on.”

On Mugabe
Napier criticised Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for staying for too long in power. He said although he is democratically elected, it is worrisome when a president changes the constitution for his own purpose – he has lost the idea of being the servant of his nation. “When I look back at Mugabe’s history at one time I would have said, apart from the time of the Matabeleland Massacre, the Fifth Brigade if you take out that for 15 years Mugabe led his country very well. But then came that point when he started fiddling with the constitution, from there Zimbabwe started going on a downward trend.”

On mushrooming of charismatic churches
“I think they come under the umbrella of promoting the kingdom of Lord Jesus, but in many ways they do not know what the kingdom of Jesus is. For instance, their whole emphasis on wealth and prosperity really cuts across what we understand as Jesus’ kingdom”