Watching some pastors nowadays showcasing on different television stations on how many miracles they can perform through different moving testimonies, only a few will doubt their power.

But for 51-year-old Mcmillan Butali, these adverts are torturing. He cannot forget the suffering he went through three years ago when his daughter Sarah Mutuwa, an S.6 student then at Seeta High School, nearly went insane.

Like any caring parent, he worked tirelessly to have his daughter regain her senses and of course some of the measures he undertook were to seek help from a number of pastors and charismatic Catholic priests as advised by friends.

At Pastor Samuel Kakande’s church in Mulago, Butali was denied entrance because he lacked medical forms to prove that doctors had failed to heal his daughter. Since Butali only possessed receipts from counsellors, he could not be helped.

He was convinced that his daughter had no sickness, but was possessed by demons. For Butali, the turning point came when he visited Pastor Augustine Yiga’s church in Kawaala.

Here, Butali recalls that if one had no money, they could not join the queue of those in need of healing. Before one joined this queue, they had to state the amount of money they had and then register their particulars.

In the registration book, they put down their full names, place of residence and phone contacts, so that they could keep track of them. According to Butali, after payments were made, people were grouped according to how much they had paid and those who had paid more than Shs 100,000 would enter first, individually.

The rest who paid less than Shs 50,000 each, entered in groups to be prayed for. Within this make-shift church, Butali says there is a small room, where the pastor sits and one has to remove their shoes before they enter.

Inside this room, there is one table and a chair to accommodate the pastor; the rest kneel down. Each time one enters, this room is closed and there is no Bible in sight. Before prayer, everyone has to have their eyes closed and the only sound one hears is that of the whirring fan.

Butali recalls that after prayer, Yiga asked him to take photographs of some of his family members and bring them during his next encounter so that he could pray for them but at fee of Shs 500,000.

“It is from here that I realized I was being conned and that is why I stopped going to his church. Afterall he also failed to heal my daughter. But since these people keep track of you,  I one time received a message that I could now take Shs 100,000, then another day, the message read, I could now give them Shs 50,000. So, you see the kind of religious leaders we have today,” Butali said.

Even while Butali has stopped going to Kawaala, he says to date he still receives messages from the church, offering him ‘prayer packages’. Butali has been so turned off by what he encountered in Kawaala, that he forbids his family members to tune in to Pentecostal sermons on radio or TV, because he now believes all pastors are like that.

Efforts to talk to Yiga, who is also nicknamed Abizaayo for his controversial doctrine of sending witchcraft charms back to torment their senders, were fruitless as his known telephone line was switched off. Butali is, nonetheless, thankful that through constant prayers and fasting, his daughter got healed.

“She sat for her UNEB exams after missing out nearly all the three terms of study and excelled,” says a proud Butali. Mutuwa is now in her third year at Makerere University.

Apostle Alex Mitala, the chairman of the National Fellowship of Born-again churches condemns the act of charging money for prayers. Pentecostal pastors do not charge believers for healing prayers or any other prayers.

According to Mitala, Jesus said, “I have given to you freely, so do the same to others.” He, however, pointed out that Catholics too charge for prayers.

“To conduct prayers either for the dead or mass for anything, they ask for money. I think this is why this disease is spreading so fast,” he argued.

But Fr Fred Jjenga, the Director of Holy Cross Ministries in Nsambya, says there is no such habit as charging money for prayers in the Catholic church. He said there are only a few fees levied to process church work like printing baptism cards during baptism and also to facilitate priests in case they are to travel upcountry to conduct prayers.

Ronald Mukiibi, a pastor at Victory Christian Centre in Ndeeba, also believes it is not biblically right for religious leaders to charge for prayers, irrespective of denomination.