PASTOR JAILED

A LUSAKA pastor has been sentenced to five years and six months simple imprisonment for swindling his female church member out of K86, 000 on pretext that he had a government road contract.Before Lusaka Magistrate Alice Walusiku was Sydney Mwandu, 36, of house number 1015 Mbawa Road in Chelston Township.Mwandu was facing four counts of obtaining money by false pretenses and one count of obtaining credit by false pretenses from Tina Tissi Phiri. In the first count par- ticulars of offence were that between November 1, 2012 and November 30, 2012 with intent to deceive or defraud, Mwandu obtained K15, 000 from Ms. Phiri by falsely pretending that he had a road contract on which he needed to partner with her when in fact not.In the second count particulars of offence were that between September 1, 2015 and September 30, 2015 with intent to deceive or defraud, Mwandu obtained K32, 000 from Ms. Phiri by falsely pretending that he had bought a tipper truck for use in the purported contract and needed money to pay import duty to the Zambia Revenue Authority when in fact not.In count three, particulars of offence were that between December 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015, with intent to deceive or defraud Mwandu obtained K30, 000 from Ms. Phiri by falsely pretend- ing that he needed the money to pay owners of the truck which he hired for use in the construction work when in fact not.In the fourth count, particulars of offence were that between October 1, 2017 and October 30, 2017, with intent to deceive or defraud Mwandu obtained K3, 500 from Ms. Phiri by falsely pretending that he needed the money buy spare parts for the purported tipper truck when in fact not.In count five, the particulars were that on August 2, Sydney Mwandu 2018 with intent to deceive or defraud, Mwandu incurred a debt amounting to K5, 500 from Ms. Phiri by falsely pretending that he was going to pay back when in fact not.After finding Mwandu guilty on all the counts, Ms. Walusiku fined him K8, 500 in total and ordered him to refund Ms. Phiri the K86, 000 he got from her or in default of all the above serve 66 months simple imprisonment.