Slaying Dragons

Infamous Pastor Mboro is back in the news – but he believes he’s the victim of a smear campaign

- Ruwaydah Lillah

HE’S no stranger to controversy. He’s made headlines for claiming to have raised a dead woman from the grave, there’s the infamous “biscuit” incident, and a post declaring he’d gone to heaven – and taken pictures – went viral on social media last year.

Yet when a Facebook post claimed he’d also gone to hell and slayed Satan, Prophet Paseka Motsoeneng, better known as Pastor Mboro, was spitting fire. “I have never been to heaven or hell and come back – no man can do that,” he tells us when we meet him at one of his houses.

This one, in Germiston, is a property he has converted into an office and studio equipped with two TV cameras on tripods in front of a green backdrop.

“I’ve never said that or nor said I have pictures from heaven,” he says, perched on a plush white leather couch. “If there’s evidence I’ve said those things and have those pictures, please can someone come and show them to me.”

As a result of news of his so-called heavenly trip, Mboro was summoned by the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission).

He rejected the summons and the CRL Rights Commission laid criminal charges, which they say they’re now following up on. That’s why the whole matter has blown up again.

“It’s another fundraising gimmick, as far as we’re concerned,” said chairperson Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva at the time.

But Mboro believes Thoko harbours a personal vendetta against him. “The office she holds is a credible office and she’s not using it properly,” he says. “She shows she can be bought because you can’t have a personal agenda against a specific person like she has with me.”