MUTINTA MULAYE writes
@SunZambian
THE Lusaka Boma Local Court has ordered a man of Chawama Township to refund another man of the same area K2,500 after a business deal failed to work out.
James Phiri, a university student, sued Owen Chishimba, a businessman.
The case was heard by senior local court magistrate Cotilda Kamono.
Phiri testified that he gave Chishimba money to order groundnuts for him from the village for resale, but Chishimba failed to deliver the commodity.
He therefore wanted him to refund the money.
“I got interested in his business. So I gave him money to order groundnuts for me as well. Too much time passed and whenever I tried to talk to him, he would tell me different stories. I got tired and told him to give me the money if things had failed, but even that seemed to be a problem,” Phiri said.
He said Chishimba had not shown any seriousness in paying him back the money and when he took the matter to the police, Chishimba promised to pay and claimed he left K500 at the police which he (Phiri) never received.
“I went there and the police told me he did not leave any money. Even when I told him I needed to use the money for school fees he has still been delaying. I even had to get some loans while waiting on him to give me the money. I just had to come to court as a last resort,” Phiri said.
Chishimba then told the court Phiri followed him in the first place to tell him to engage him in the business he was doing.
“At the time I had already gone for one trip so I went to the village to collect the money because some groundnuts I bought had already been sold for me.
“James gave me K3,000 to order some for him and he told me all expenses for the sacs and transport were to be removed from the same money,” Chishimba said.
He said when he went to the village he paid for his groundnuts and the people he was dealing with told him they would contact him after the groundnuts had been sold,” he said.
Chishimba said he kept communicating with Phiri, but the sale of his groundnuts was very slow and the expected money did not come in good time.
“Some people also got the groundnuts on credit and were delaying to pay, and I explained all this to James but he kept pressuring me,” Chishimba said.
Magistrate Kamono ordered Chishimba to refund Phiri a sum of K2,533 in two installments for the inconvenience.
