The reopening of places of worship seems to be taking a new twist as local authorities are demanding for more measures than the general ones that were issued by the Ministry of Local Government earlier this month. The ministry issued guidelines which place of worship must abide upon to reopen after a cabinet meeting in July gave the green light for the resumption of religious gatherings. Government stressed that the reopening of worship places would be done on a case by case basis, whereby local authorities would carry out inspections on each facility to ascertain if they meet the set protective standards. From then, churches, mosques, cathedrals have been working to set in place the requirements in order for them to resume with gatherings. Having established that, some places of worship invited local authorities to inspect them in anticipation of being allowed to resume gatherings – only to find out that it wouldn’t be enough. Today, very few places of worship have been reopened – something that partly owes to the fact that local authorities have independently added new requirements that these facilities must fulfil. In fact, some churches that had been opened last Sunday may not be open on Sunday, July 26 since the requirements they presented are no longer enough - having been altered by the local authorities. One of such churches is Regina Pacis, a large Catholic Church in Kimironko. Last Sunday the church hosted a congregation since it had been given a green light then. However, it is a different case for this Sunday. When The New Times visited the venue on Saturday, July 25, we found out that they were not going to congregate on Sunday since they had not completed setting up some of the requirements for example: a sensor-powered handwashing station. General guidelines issued by the Ministry of Local Governments allowed places of worship to use the mobile hand washing stations, but for now, some local authorities, for example, Gasabo district have asked for sensor-powered handwashing stations. Pastor Joel Sengoga, the Secretary-General of the Rwanda Inter-Religious Council told The New Times that worship places made preparations based on MINALOC’s guidelines, however, now local authorities are asking for more, “What is evident is that the written guidelines from the ministry are not those that the local authorities are asking for. They have added some things which were not there,” he said. Besides requiring sensor-powered hand-washing stations, Sengoga said that local authorities are also requiring churches to have up to 3 metres of social distancing gaps between the believers while in the church (larger than the one and a half metres directed by the ministry of local governments). When The New Times contacted the Ministry of Local Governments for a comment about what is being done by districts, a source from the MINALOC said that there are no new guidelines different from those issued by the ministry itself, and what the local leaders are required to do is to inspect the places of worship in line with those requirements, and if they comply, they reopen them.
