The founding leader of the Prophetic Healing And Deliverance Ministries [PHD], Prophet Walter Magaya, has said only lazy people eat three times daily.

The cleric, therefore, lambasted gourmands, foodies, and gastronomers.

Magaya, who made the comments while speaking with students of Harare Polytechnic in Zimbabwe recently, also criticised people who sleep more hours a day.

He, however, didn’t state how many hours is normal.

He said only lazy people take three meals per day while other more innovative people will be busying looking for means for them to become wealthy.

The theme of Magaya’s speech at the students’ event was innovation and how to make money, according to iHarare online newspaper.

Here is the full statement by Magaya:

“If you do not want to be creative and innovative you become an ordinary citizen and remain poor after taking years studying and wasting your parents’ hard-earned money.

I do not sit on a chair for nothing. I do not have time to eat and I am ever running in whatever I do because our nation is years behind developed countries.

People who love to sleep more hours, who take three meals or more per day are lazy and nothing profitable will come from such.

We expect students to concentrate on researching ways to make products that bring wealth to the nation like researching on how plastic is made than selling plastic things. Improve products so that they continue to remain on demand if you want to be millionaires and billionaires.”

Magaya, a disciple of TB Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), is married to a banker. Together they have two children.

He started his ministry in 2012 after a visit to Joshua in Lagos.

Magaya, who was born 6 November 1983, now boasts of a million congregants and claims to have performed miracles.

In February, a Harare court convicted him of fraud and fined him $700 (£540) for falsely claiming he had a herbal cure for HIV and Aids.

He had pleaded guilty to contravening the Medicines Control Act by selling an unapproved drug.