Thursday, May 11, 2023 – Attorney General Justin Muturi has admitted failure on the part of President William Ruto’s government to stop the Shakahola massacre.
Speaking while appearing before the Senate Ad-hoc Committee, Muturi, however, faulted the existing laws as the reason for the government’s failure to reign in on religious groups that preach false doctrines, in particular the Shakahola massacre.
He stated that his office and the Registrar of Societies lacked powers to prevent cult-like religion.
According to Muturi, the Societies Act was weak and mundane – urging Parliament to liaise with the Executive in a bid to restore sanity to the religious sector.
“The Act that allows for registration of such groups is loose. It was enacted over 50 years ago and it is not fit for purpose because there have been major developments ever since then,” AG Muturi stated.
‘’One must be a miracle worker or an angel to have a reasonable belief that something suspicious is happening in Shakahola forest,” he added.
He further revealed that the provisions within the Act hampered the capacity of the Office of Registrar General from punishing such religious acts that violated the law.
Alluding to this, he pointed out that his office had developed a draft Bill to address the loopholes in the current law.
Further, AG Muturi noted that the Office of Registrar General held records of over 100,000 registered societies out of which 40,000 were religious in nature.
He faulted the process of registering these associations manually – noting that it led to non-compliance owing to the lapses involved in terms of inadequate human resources to scrutinize the files.
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