Mutinta Mulaye writes
THE Boma Local Court in Lusaka has given a couple of Lilayi two months to ‘go and think about it’ after the wife sued her husband for divorce.
Betty Tembo, 29, who sued Boyd Mwangelwa, 32, told senior local court magistrate Bertha Zulu that from the time they got married in 2016, they only lived well for eight months.
She said her husband had been living in Choma for work from the time they got married and was only transferred to Lusaka this year.
“The main problem is debt. He never supports our son and always says he doesn’t have money. Even the K3, 000 for lobola came from me because he didn’t have money. He told me he would pay me back but up to now he hasn’t,
“We organised a small wedding. We were each supposed to put in K10, 000. But he said he didn’t have money when I had already done some things so I was forced to get a loan and put that K10, 000 on his behalf. He said he’ll pay me back but he hasn’t,” she said.
Later she discovered that Mwangilwa had a loan from the bank which he was paying.
“We stayed together in Choma for three weeks and when I left, he started selling household goods like beds, TVs, fridges. When I asked him why, he said people were bothering him because of ‘kaloba’,” she said.
She said after three months a certain lady started harassing her and following her to her work place.
“He owed her K15, 000 and I had pay to her back slowly. It was nkongole after nkongole from then. People in our neighborhood could call me, followed me or stopped me on the way because he had debt everywhere,
“Another woman has been coming me to my workplace claiming he owes her K9, 000. I discovered he got three new loans on top of the other one he has which we’ve been arguing about. I don’t even know where the money goes,” she said.
In defence Mwangelwa did not deny the allegations. He however told the court that he left his contract with Zanaco and moved to work for ZNS .
“I was expecting a K90, 000 gratuity from Zanaco, but there was three months left in the contract and I failed to finish that three months because ZNS needed me to start with them immediately. I was going to use that money to settle all my debts,
“I started borrowing money to pay back other debts while my wife was also pressuring me for marriage. I told her I wasn’t ready but she didn’t understand. She paid for everything which I will pay back,” he said.
He did not want a divorce because things would be fine between them when he finished paying back his loans.
The court gave the couple two months to make to try and make things work.
