THE Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) church saga in Marondera has taken a new twist after the church’s provincial leaders, who recently tried to transfer an assembly junior pastor to the rural areas before being chased away by congregants, have blocked the assembly’s CBZ Bank account.
by Jairos Saunyama
The decision to block the account came a few months after congregants at The Word Centre Assembly in Dombotombo, Marondera, turned riotous during a service, before blocking the transfer of the church’s resident pastor, Byron Maforo. This resulted in the provincial leadership establishing a rival assembly nearby and appointed Ernest Muswere as its leader.
However, the fight has turned nasty as the Maforo-led Word Centre assembly is threatening to take CBZ Bank to court over the freezing of their account.
In a letter dated December 8, 2015, addressed to the financial institution’s bank manager and signed by one Admire Munonyara (Maforo-led church secretary), the assembly who are still claiming they belong to the AFM demanded the bank to allow them use of the account.
“We as the Word Centre Assembly opened an account with your bank which is an independent account with all the trust that our funds are safe and well guarded. To our surprise you and your offices chose to freeze our account without our consent. To our understanding no one has legal right to take such actions without the consent of the signatories.
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“Whoever is behind such actions, to us it is a criminal move which must be taken seriously,” read part of the letter.
The letter also stated that the assembly is ready to take the issue to the fraud section, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, CBZ head offices and Institute of Bankers of Zimbabwe. Munonyara yesterday told NewsDay that they would continue fighting for the reopening of their bank account.
“It’s the bank that has to tell us why they froze our account without our consent, because we had gone to perform transactions as usual and told you can’t. To our surprise we were told of some surprising developments carried out behind our back.
“How could the bank allow someone to tamper with our account that we opened without anyone’s formal instruction. We opened the account on our own decision and to our surprise, we chose an organisation that cannot protect our Assembly funds. Indeed financial stakeholders must hear our story if it’s not sorted in our stipulated time,” he said.
Efforts to get a comment from CBZ Marondera Branch officials were fruitless yesterday. AFM Mashonaland East provincial leader, Stanley Nyamandi’s, mobile phone went unanswered. Nyamande is on record saying the AFM no longer recognised Maforo’s group.
Early this year, a fierce leadership wrangle erupted within the AFM in Zimbabwe’s top leadership in Harare, raising fears the pentecostal church could be heading for a split, after some pastors and elders dragged their administrators to court, challenging the way they conducted the church’s presidential and overseers’ elections.