Pretoria – Thousands of disgruntled members affiliated with the Jerusalem faction of the International Pentecost Holiness Church (IPHC) took to the streets of Pretoria on Monday to denounce alleged harassment by “rogue” members of the SAPS.
The perpetual harassment and targeting of IPHC Jerusalem members, including its leader “Successor” Michael Sandlana, is a well-orchestrated campaign linked to the high-stakes three-way court wrangle for the ultimate leadership of the popular church, according to spokesperson Priest Vusi Ndala.
“Since the passing of our Comforter MG Modise in 2016, the church has been fragmented into three factions. These are the three groups, but from where we are, we are the IPHC and then there are these other two factions,” said Ndala.
“Now, what happens in this leadership battle, the other factions have turned to tactics of deploying certain people using means of scaring or intimidating and harassing us, using some rogue police officers. There are unwarranted charges that are laid against us, there is haste to arrest and there is no evidence.”
Ndala lamented that some of the cases were initiated in 2020 while others were started last year.
“The courts keep postponing these cases, I don’t know for how many times. When we also open cases, nothing happens. Some members of the other IPHC factions happen to be officers or members of law enforcement agencies. They misuse state resources, working with these rogue police officers,” he said.
“We believe that not all police officers are rogue, but there are those who are captured. They are scaring us. There are many incidents at our headquarters at Jerusalem where police cars just come there in a convoy to intimidate us. We have CCTV footage.”
Ndala said his division of the IPHC was peaceful and only gathers for “spiritual nourishment”.
In January, the IPHC Jerusalem convened a media briefing where Ndala and Sandlana’s spokesperson Tshepo Phuthi lamented the ongoing intimidation crusade, allegedly involving members of the SAPS. The duo said some of the harassment incidents took place at the IPHC Jerusalem church precinct in Rabokala, North West.
At the time, the SAPS, through spokesperson for the police in North West, Colonel Adéle Myburgh, said any claims made against police officers in the province were not taken lightly.
On Monday, Ndala said nothing had been done by the SAPS, prompting the thousands of disgruntled members to take their complaints to the offices of Minister of Police Bheki Cele in the Pretoria CBD.
“We wrote to the police minister in 2020 after a number of invasions at our premises. We have written to the national police commissioner, General Khehla Sitole and we got no response. We have written to the provincial commissioner of North West and nothing happened. We went to Ipid and nothing happened,” said Ndala.
The well-known church, which boasts a three-million-strong membership in South Africa and neighbouring countries, has been engulfed in a bitter three-way conflict to succeed Glayton Modise who had "inherited" the church from his father and founder in 1998. There has been intensive conflict between the three main contenders – Glayton Modise's two sons Frederick Leonard Goitsemang and Tshepiso, and Michael Sandlana, reportedly Glayton Modise's son out of wedlock, to take over the reins of the church.
Sandlana reportedly leads around 70% of the IPHC branches across South Africa, while Leonard Modise leads the IPHC group based at the Silo headquarters church in Zuurbekom.
Tshepiso Modise leads the faction in Springs, east of Johannesburg.
IOL