Church leaders who have difficulty in obtaining land for their churches have until until October 10 to register at Ekurhuleni Metro.
The metro is currently busy registering churches in an attempt to resolve illegal land occupation.
Religious communities that register will be placed on the municipality’s database of churches.
This registration will then serve as part of an accreditation process to determine the eligibility of churches to access land and municipal facilities.
Themba Gadebe, spokesman of Ekurhuleni Metro Municipality says this call to register came after discussions took place at the Religious Summit held in Germiston in December last year.
The religious leaders at the summit articulated their difficulties in acquiring land for their churches.
Four options were presented as a proposed solution for these:
- Leasing of schools owned by Department of Education as a short-term solution.
- Leasing of metro-owned facilities as a short-term solution.
- Leasing and acquiring of council-owned land as a long-term solution.
- Ekurhuleni to construct church precincts, where space shall be shared by various churches on a rotational basis.
While the metro’s Real Estate Department currently pursues these options, the Health and Social Development Department has established an accreditation process which serves to gather information on the churches in the metro.
Gadebe urges churches to register.
“The accredited churches will qualify to be prioritised for use of municipal facilities as a place of worship,” says Gadebe.
The accreditation is free of charge.
Religious leaders can obtain and also submit application forms for accreditation at their nearest Customer Care Area (CCA) offices.
The forms will be collected from the CCA by the Health and Social Development Department and feedback will be given to the applicants after the database has been formed.
