‘You continued collecting money for a sold plot?’

MULENGA MUSONDA writes THE Choma Magistrates Court has convicted a 39 year old man for duping someone out of  K13,000 on the pretext that he had a plot for sale. In this matter Fident Mwiinga of Choma’s Zambia Township stood charged with obtaining money by false prentences contrary to the Laws of Zambia. Particulars of the offence are that Mwiinga with intent to defraud, obtained K13,000 from Wiverson Munkombwe by falsely pretending that he had a plot to sell when in fact not. The incident happened between July 2019 and November 2019 in ChomaDistrict of Southern Province. When he appeared for plea before Senior Resident Magistrate IdahMupemo, the accused person admitted the allegations without wasting the Courts time. Court: Do you understand the charge ? Mwiinga: I do Court: Do you admit or deny? Mwiinga: I admit Court: Did you get the K13,000 cash. Mwiinga: I only received about K11,000 cash and the rest was Maize. Court: So the total came to K13,000? Mwiinga: Yes. Court: What was it for? Mwiinga: It was for the land Court: Did he eventually get the piece of land? Mwiinga: No Court: What happened? Mwiinga: He was paying me in installments so I sold it to someone who had cash and he paid me K13,500. At that time Mr Munkombwe had only paid K8,500. Court: So you received the K13,500 from your new buyer but continued to get money from him(Munkombwe)? Mwiinga: Yes. Court: Did you have have lawful authority to do what you did? Mwiinga: We were with the Chairman and some money remained with him so he could refund the complainant but he ran away. Court: I record a plea of guilty. After entering a plea of guilty the Court granted the state the application to dictate facts, to which after the statement was read, Mwiinga admitted that all was true and correct. Magistrate Mupemo thus found him guilty and committed him to 9 weeks community service and if he defaults he will serve 6 months in jail with labour. The Court further advised Mwiinga to pay the complainant before he sues him in a civil lawsuilt as it will be costly on his part. The Sun