Nation of honest people starts at family level, says PM

What you need to know:

  • He made the statement yesterday (Saturday, June 17, 2017) when he was speaking to guests, who attended a fund raising drive for construction of a church and the house of a priest in the Zuzu Designated Parish, on the outskirts of Dodoma Town.

Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa has said parents have the obligation of bringing up their children under the foundations of God-fearing so that the nation can have honest and hard-working people.

“A nation of honest and hard-working people starts at the family level. If our households live without honesty and integrity, it is very hard for the nation to have honest people. So, it is important to our families to ensure that we have God-fearing and religious children,” said the Prime Minister.

He made the statement yesterday (Saturday, June 17, 2017) when he was speaking to guests, who attended a fund raising drive for construction of a church and the house of a priest in the Zuzu Designated Parish, on the outskirts of Dodoma Town.

The fund-raising drive was preceded by Thanksgiving Service for the late Mzee Xavery Mizengo Pinda, the father of retired Prime Minister, Mizengo Peter Pinda. Mzee Xavery Pinda died on November 27, last year, at Dodoma Regional Hospital and laid to rest at his Kibaoni home village in Mlele District, Katavi Region.

PM Majaliwa reiterated that the parents were supposed to evaluate themselves over the upbringing of their children and question themselves if such children had care that they deserved. “Through today’s sermons we have received, we need to evaluate ourselves over the upbringing of children.

“Do our children get the upbringing they deserve? Do we bring them up under the foundations of giving out for Gog or do we teach them about monopolizing wealth? Do we question our children about their quickly gotten wealth? Or do we congratulate them and become happy without knowing where they have obtained that wealth?,” queried the PM.

“I would like to use this opportunity to urge all parents that we need to make an effort in investing in the upbringing of our children so that we become such kind of mirror of the nation that we want to build. So, it is necessary that we bring our children up under the foundations of religious faith, honesty and earnest patriotism for our nation,” the PM insisted.

In the fund-raising drive, the PM and his wife contributed Sh10 million, whereby a total of Sh160 million was raised. Out of the cash, pledges amounted to Sh111,150,000, Sh38,447,000 was cash in hand and Sh10,403,000 was worth of building materials.

Earlier, presiding over the Thanksgiving Mass, the Deputy Bishop of Dodoma’s Catholic Cathedral, Fr Chesco Msaga said everybody was supposed to thank God, for there was no human being, who could claim that he was the way he was because of his own intelligence.

“Even we ourselves forget to thank God, especially when things are good to us. We think that our things are good because of our own knowledge. We need to remember that our lives are in the Hands of God as He is the One who Knows our ways,” he said, reviewing to the example of 10 lepers who were healed by Jesus Christ and only one returned to thank Him.

For his part, retired Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda said the fund-raising drive followed the decision of Dodoma’s Catholic Cathedral Archbishop Beatus Kinyaiya to choose Zuzu to be a parish.

ENDS