Most 'overnight churches' not registered

Excerpt

29.12.2018

There’s concern in Trinidad and Tobago over ‘overnight’ churches that are not registered with the Ministry of Legal Affairs.

According to the Trinidad Express, seventy-five per cent of these “overnight” churches are not registered with the Office of the Ministry of Legal Affairs, and many are owned and operated by Guyanese nationals, Venezuelans and even Nigerians, who have labelled themselves pastors, apostles and ‘other religious connotations’.

According to tax attorney Claude Denbow SC, ‘As it stands now there is is no legal regime which requires or makes it mandatory for churches to register and there is no legal authority vested in any governmental or regulatory institution to prevent them from operating if they are not registered.’

In an interview with the Sunday Express, the Attorney General, Faris Al-Rawi stated that ‘We have embarked upon an exercise which will cause all non-profit organisations, any entity out there, however it is arranged or calls itself, all of those organisations, I am going to bring into the requirements that they must register with the Register General.’

The AG said that several of these non-profit organisations, inclusive of small churches, are legally unknown and that this was a matter of concern. ‘We must know who the people are, where their office is, where their principals are, who has the responsibility…’ Adding that this legislation will subject issues to a high level of scrutiny, including the Financial Intelligence Unit, the AG said ‘I have spent a couple of years working on this, I have drafted legislation and sent out to a wide section of stakeholders. I have received all the essential feedback and I am now in the final stages of cleaning up that legislation to take to Parliament.