Now the Tax man Want His Cut

As need turned to greed over donation money, the fluid issues has not taken a new twist, the Internal Revenue Service is asking for their cut.

According to documents obtained by the Promise, three people have been asked to head down to the internal revenue office. The core of their beef with the Tax man is that their donations that they claim on last year’s taxes that they gave to the church have no supporting documents.

“I am as mad as hell, we may lose our home” said one of the three who asked for anonymity. According to the three, they all share the same grief. Although they claim to have given the church money totaling 1500 dollars, thy never received any proof of donation of their money from the church for any money above 500.00 according to the parties.

The promise will keep the blog updated as the fast moving events unfold.

Another Donation Row Twist; Mugo Withdraws Lawsuit. Countersuit Pending

As the two sides’ stared reality and the dare of brinkmanship to a tee, Mr. Mugo finally went last week to Collin County Court and withdrew his demand for 10,000 dollars. But the story’s climatic ending is also a beginning of another phase of counter lawsuits.

The idea of churches settling their dispute in public courts of law over donation money in itself sounds to many leaders as dumb as dumb can be. When I had a conversation with Bishop Herzog, he reiterated that he has faith that the court system will administer American justice that all parties can live with.

From Texas to Massachusetts and to the plains of Tennessee, every time Kenyan churches have any issues where thousands of dollars are involved, it has become a common occurrence to see smartly dressed Caucasian males ready to consult and give “advice”. The sad thing is that all these churches do not have a single person who is of color, but they only show up to give their expertise to stupid Africans when their bottom-line is threatened. The scene was the same when Mr. Ngobia and Trinity Rector Rev. Bill Lovell wrote a letter to anyone they could think of to resolve their conflict with Mugo the American way. The apple does not fall far away from the tree, so when Mr. Mugo felt he had issues to address; your instincts dictate that you stick with what you know. How do such learned people end up with such bad consulting advice? This kind of thinking is best explained through the story of the shepherd and the Yuppie. As the story goes, a shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the shepherd, and tells him; "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?" The shepherd looked at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looked at his peacefully-grazing flock and calmly answered, "Sure."

The yuppie parked his car, whipped out his IBM Think pad and connected it to a cell phone, then he surfed to a NASA page on the Internet where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system, scanned the area, and then opened up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas. He sent an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, received a response. Finally, he prints out a 150 page report on his hi- tech, miniaturized printer then turns to the shepherd and says, "You have exactly 1,586 sheep". "That is correct, take one of the sheep," said the shepherd.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car. Then the shepherd says: "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?" "OK, why not," answered the young man. "Clearly, you are a consultant" said the shepherd. "That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?" "No guessing required," answers the shepherd. "You turned up here, although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don't know crap about my business. Now give me back my dog".

The reason why their deranged advice ends up in to the dogs is because they are advising Africans that they barely know. They do not come to our birthdays or soccer games. They do not know us. These crowns of white advisers only show up when the green Benjamin’s are stake.

I asked the same recorded question to Bishop Herzog if he has any interest or stake in the 10,000 dollars or the money in the churches’ kitty. Of course he said he has none. But as details from the public domain emerge, Herzog and his organization receive 200.00 dollars every Sunday from every church he “plants”. I am not good in math, but that sounds like 800 per month. If you “plant” twenty churches, well you get the picture of why people in funny huts only show up every time an African dispute involves real dollars.

As we wait for the counter lawsuits to take hold, let’s hope that we have learnt from this community leaders how not to settle disputes in our communities.

http://www.ajabuafrica.com/Faith-Kenyan%20Pastor%20to%20face%20Criminal%20probe%20for%20Sexual%20Abuse.html

Lawsuits over Donation Money Turns into Counter Lawsuits

As the new saga of the donation money take twists and turns, the initial lawsuits has turned into counter lawsuits over the donation money.

Two former officials have secured attorneys in a bid to sue the Anglican church organization for damages arising from defamation and what one of the lawyers believes that the Anglican church can be held liable through what he called vicarious responsibility.

As the legal mind explained, Vicarious liability is a form liability that arises under the common law where the superior is held liable  for the acts of their subordinate, or, in a broader sense, the responsibility of any third party that had the "right, ability or duty to control" the activities of a violator. In broader sense, the Anglican Church can be held liable by what they know or should have known about the acts of their pastor. Below is the filing by Mr. Mugo demanding the 10,000 dollars, even though he already received a total of 6,400 from three of the churches that had received part of the 1700.00 shared between the five churches.

Case Number 01-SC-10-00313 Date Filed: 12/10/2010 Case Type: CV - Small Claims  Status: Filed Style: St Matthews Anglican Church vs. Peter Kanyiri Judicial Officer: Raleeh, Paul M. in Precinct 1

Parties

Type Name DOB Address  Attorney Defendant Kanyiri, Peter Plaintiff St Matthew's Anglican Church 1714 N. Story Rd, Irving, TX 75061

Cause of action
File Date Cause Description Parcel Number Remedy Sought Remedy Amount 12/10/2010 Monetary $10,000.00

 

Financial Summary
Plaintiff
Charges  : $86.00
Payments: $86.00
Balance   : $0.00

Pastor Mugo Donation Money Row Takes another Turn, Lawyers will have Final Say.

As the situation of 10,000 dollars donation money that Pastor John Mugo Mwangi is suing to get back took another turn when the defendant enlisted the services of a local lawyer on his defense.

The trial date which was scheduled for March 23 has been postponed to enable the Attorney to prepare a good defense for his client. At stake is 10,000 dollars that was raised to bond out Mr. Mugo from jail. Mr. Mugo in his brief claims that the money that was contributed when he was in jail to bond him out but later divided among the major churches that contributed the money technically belongs to him, and he is suing to get it back, forget the point that the money was contributed by people he does not know when he was in jail!

But the fight for 10,000 is peanuts compared to what is going on in a small town called Lowell, Massachusetts. The fight is for who was the claim of the churches kitty for 200,000. Mr. Karimi, the former Pastor, was convicted for sexual misconduct, and several women have come forward claiming that the the man of the cloth is actually, a sexual predator.

According to the website Ajabu Africa he Kenyan Community Presbyterian church (Ushindi) enters a new phase tomorrow after Dr. Mumbui Karimi and some of the newly elected directors filed a motion for a temporary order restraining Wilson Wachira (former chairman of finance), Joyce Gathoni (former secretary) and Bank of America as the trustee of church funds from making any transactions using the church funds. The order was filed on Thursday last week (March 3), at the Superior court in Woburn, Massachusetts.

I know many people are asking the same question; what has happened to our church leaders today. Are the courts the best venue to resolve our disputes, when the lawyers have no intention of settling the disputes in the first place when they are being paid on contingency bases? When all the motions and discoveries are requested on both sides, and records and financial statements are subpoenaed and witness depositions taken, the truth of the matter will finally come out. There is also another possibility that the public will end up knowing the naked truth that we wished we never knew about people of the cloth and money.

How the Mental Patients Are Treated in Kenya

Mental Patients in Kenya
The tin shack looks like any other in a patch of small plots on the dusty outskirts of Nairobi. It's the haunting sound that grabs you, the awful moaning and cries coming from within.
It's Thomas Matoke's home. But it's more like a cell. Matoke, 33, is tied to a steel bedframe with a piece of blue rope. He's surrounded by pools of his urine, his mattress soiled and ripped to shreds.
His moans are interrupted when he chews his hand or the bedframe. He can't speak to tell his mother what he wants or feels. He's alone in his world of screams and agony.
He's been like this for 30 years.
Matoke got ill when he was a toddler and lost much of his high-level functioning. So his mother ties him up to prevent him from running away or hurting himself.
Countless trips to doctors and hospitals haven't helped him. And poverty means there isn't much medical help his family can afford.
"His siblings ask whether we wronged God, because we are really suffering," said his mom, Milkah Moraa. "I can't even hang his clothes outside because of the stink. The neighbors complain."

Joseph's grim story

Mental health patients locked away

CNN crew locked in hospital by medics

The policy is very clear. Mental health services are a priority. ... The practice is also clear. They are not.
--Dr. Frank Njenga

RELATED TOPICS

• Kenya
• Mental Health

Shunned by the community, Moraa does what little she can to ease his agony. Her life is consumed by trying to take care of her sick son.
But Matoke is not alone.
There are an estimated 3 million, mostly poor, Kenyans living with intellectual and mental disabilities, according to NGO and United Nations figures.
As part of a special investigation, CNN found that families are struggling to cope with their loved ones, receiving little help from the state and facing massive stigma from society.
CNN's team filmed families locking up their loved ones, children discarded by institutions, cases of suspected sexual abuse. Kenya faces an epidemic of neglect.
"It is such a huge problem," said Edah Maina, head of the Kenya Society for the Mentally Handicapped. "If somebody would understand the extent it is huge, then I think someone can begin to act."
But often, Maina and her charity are the only ones acting. Scores of cases of neglect and abuse flood their office every day: autistic children chained in chicken coops, epileptic adults sealed in filthy shacks, daughters raped by their fathers. They are overwhelmed.
Dr. Frank Njenga, president of the African Association of Psychiatrists and a leading expert in the field, believes the scale is "catastrophic."
"We as a people have perfected the system of hiding our friends, relatives and other loved ones who have intellectual disability away from sight," Njenga said. "Out of sight, out of mind, no funding, neglected completely."
He says that the greatest neglect comes from the Kenyan government.
How teenager Kennedy survives
The Kenyan government spends less than 1% of its health budget on mental health, though its own figures show that one-quarter of all patients going to hospitals or clinics complain of mental health issues.
And the Health and Medical Services ministries have been plagued by a series of corruption scandals in recent years.
More than $3 billion in public money was stolen in 2009, according to the Kenyan Ministry of Finance. This could have funded the entire ministry responsible for mental health -- for 10 years.
The minister of medical services, Anyang Nyong'o, says mental health is a high priority, but it needs more funding from his central government.