Church hearing exposes alleged sexual misconduct against Archbishop Bafana Zondo

Damning revelations by disgruntled former members of the Rivers of Living Waters Ministries against their leader, Archbishop Bafana Zondo, before the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Religious Rights of Cultural and Linguistic Communities, have helped to lift the lid on alleged abusive powers wielded by church leaders.

This follows the sexual abuse allegations made by several teenage girls against controversial Nigerian televangelist Timothy Omoso in the Port Elizabeth High Court.

Shocking disclosures by congregants of the church to the commission, led by Prof David Masoma, has laid bare the rot in their church.

Congregants disclosed how they were forced to quit the church because of sexual harassment, while the alleged disorderly conduct is claimed to be linked to Zondo and his top disciples.

Most of the former congregants told the commission they’ve been staunch members of the church since 2008, soon after the church was launched by Zondo with his wife Seabi, with three other members in the classroom of a local school.

They also referred to the early days of the church as blissful moments when the budding congregation worked hard and rallied behind Zondo to help him grow the church.

According to former congregants, as early as 2016 the Rivers of Living Water Ministries started to take a downward slide as various sexual abuse allegations levelled against the leader of the church began to circulate.

Members close to the archbishop also related their sexual abuse experiences with their religious leader.
One female member accused Zondo of raping her when she was seven years old.

Zondo’s sister had this to say: “My mother’s child is a snake. He is a witch and his church is of the devil.”
Meanwhile, Zondo has denied all the allegations levelled against him by former congregants and dismissed them as acts of jealousy by his rivals.

Members of the church explained to the commission how, following the spread of the rumours about the church, they suddenly noticed a decline in the congregation’s interest in the church. The commission heard how members stopped attending the once-popular prophecy prayer sessions in the prayer room.

They described how the prayer room, which was also known to be a sanctuary for several young women who were handpicked by the archbishop’s disciples to be the church’s prayer warriors, was a place to pray and sleep. Those who attended the prayer room then had to tell the archbishop about their dreams in the morning.

One of the young women, who described herself as spiritually gifted from a young age, spoke about how she ended up being promoted to a higher position in the church by the archbishop. At times she would join the archbishop in delivering powerful sermons and prayers based on her dreams, which she had to interpret into prophecy sermons for the archbishop.

The young married woman testified that things changed for the worse after many of the young teenage girls who participated in the prayer sessions started leaving the prayer sanctuary to escape sexual molestation by the church leader and his church elders.

A new team of young women were brought in and later given a crash course on how to conduct prayers convincingly to be able to give prophecies about unsuspecting members of the congregation as well as newly recruited members of the public.

Many of the new girls were described by witnesses as naïve, young teenagers and were seemingly randomly picked from unverified places to scam the congregants and newcomers to the church.

Mosoma confirmed that Zondo will be notified in due course to appear before the commission to provide his side of the story.

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