Prophet TB Joshua blocked from setting up operations in Zimbabwe

Government is reportedly blocking Nigerian church leader Temitope Balogun (TB) Joshua's Synagogue Church of All Nations (Scoan)'s multi-million dollar project to cater for over 2 000 orphans in Ruwa.

Ruwa Town Council chairperson Pinias Mushayavanhu yesterday confirmed the delay by the Ministry of Local Government in approving the project, raising fears that the multi-million dollar deal could "fall through".

"We had a delegation coming here from TB Joshua to seek a place. Their initial intention is to establish an orphanage centre in Ruwa. As far as we are concerned, it's an extension of what council intends to do for orphans and social welfare services and we gladly accepted them. They openly told us that their choice of Ruwa was a prophecy and we said good things were coming to the town. Council was happy with the move and we decided to sell the land to them as that would also bring money to council coffers. We advertised and there were no objections from the community until the last day. Surprisingly on the last day, we got a surprise objection from the ministry's Physical Planning Department in Marondera which is not directly linked to Ruwa, saying the area development plan had expired," Mushayavanhu said.

As a result, council was now looking for a temporary site for Scoan to establish its operations before allocating them a permanent place to construct their centre.

Mushayavanhu said the move by the Physical Planning Department was not genuine and the town council had raised an official objection with the Local Government ministry. He said the project was meant to give orphans a normal "societal life with facilities".

Mushayavanhu added: "Meanwhile, TB Joshua needs to register a social welfare organisation and a place to operate from, and as council we were looking for a temporary area to establish their orphanage because they don't want to leave Ruwa. They wanted to build a sort of community for orphans with houses, clinics, schools and church and we were bound to also benefit from that project. They wanted to sponsor the children until university education and it's a new form of taking care of orphans."

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