A single  orphaned youth of Lusaka and her siblings have been left homeless after a civil servant they allegedly bought a house from at K50,000 turned around and refused to surrender the property to them. Twenty-six-year-old Memory Mulenga, a money lender of Balastone, bought the house from Mr Samuel Nkhoma in 2016 after he failed to pay back K30,000 she had lent to him.

Ms Mulenga said in an interview yesterday that initially, Mr Nkhoma put the house as collateral after borrowing K30,000 from her. “In 2016, a Government worker approached me and borrowed K30,000 cash and put his house in Garden Township as collateral,” Ms Mulenga said in an interview. But before paying back the debt, Mr Nkhoma put his house on sale and later approached Ms Mulenga so that she could buy it. “He [Mr Nkhoma] approached me for a top up so that I could buy his house.

“We later agreed that I top up K20,000 and the house [in garden] becomes mine,” Ms Mulenga said. The duo, in the presence of a lawyer, formalised the change of ownership into Ms Mulenga’s name and Mr Nkhoma vacated it. The K50,000 Ms Mulenga used to buy the house was realised from the sale of a family house left by her late father in 2015. “I spent the little money I was left with to improve the house by plastering it,” she said.

But after a month, Mr Nkhoma started going back to his former house, where he allegedly poured insults on Ms Mulenga and told her that he never meant to sell his property. “He told me that he has changed his mind and he will only pay back my money when he has it,” Ms Mulenga said.
In the pursuit of justice, the woman filed a lawsuit against Mr Mulenga in the Lusaka Magistrate’s Court.

The court ruled that Mr Nkhoma takes back his house and repays K50,000 to Ms Mulenga at 43 percent interest in K2,500 monthly instalments.
Ms Mulenga’s efforts to appeal against the judgement failed. “The judgement was that whatever I spent on refurbishing the house was my own loss and that he pays K50,000 plus 43 percent interest which is K71,000,” Ms Mulenga said.

But since January this year, when Mr Nkhoma was supposed to start settling the debt, he has allegedly only honoured K7,500 out of K71,000, a development which Ms Mulenga reported to court.

“Sadly, the magistrate later ruled that I get rentals of K400 per month from the house to recover my K71,000,” Ms Mulenga said. Mr Nkhoma’s alleged failure to pay back the money has shuttered Ms Mulenga’s dream of going to university and buying a house for her mother.

The woman has also failed to continue with her lending business owing to her indebtedness caused by Mr Nkhoma’s failure to clear the K71,000 debt.
“I have lost everything that I had, my life, school. I am homeless and jobless with my windowed old mother. I don’t know where to take the case or where I can find justice,” Ms Mulenga, the last-born in her family, said.

Several attempts to reach Mr Nkhoma on his mobile phone failed as the number went unanswered and later it was switched off.