adminMelody Baya Court Reporter
A POLICE officer from Bulawayo has been paying maintenance for a child who died four years ago.
Joseph Mpofu yesterday accused his ex-partner Tsitsi Shumba of stealing $980 from him by continuing to collect maintenance fees even after the death of their child.
“I want to be refunded my money which she was stealing from me,” he said.
Mpofu applied for termination of maintenance saying he only discovered recently that the money was still being deducted from his salary.
He told magistrate Adelaide Mbeure his child with Tsitsi Shumba died in 2011.
“I was initially paying maintenance of $20 for the child. The money was being deducted from my salary going to Tsitsi’s bank account but unfortunately my child died in 2011,”said Mpofu.
“Since then Tsitsi has been receiving my monthly contributions which are not due to her and it has accumulated to $980. I travel a lot as I’m transferred from one police station to another. I was under the impression that she had cancelled the maintenance arrangement after the child’s death”.
Shumba said she continued to extract the maintenance fees from Mpofu because she had to take care of the child’s hospital and burial expenses.
“I had burial expenses to take care of and hospital bills to pay so I was using the money to pay off all the debts,” said Shumba.
Mbeure granted Mpofu’s application for discharge of maintenance and said he should go before a different court if he wanted to be refunded his money.
Online Reporter