A 27-yearold teacher of Dundumwezi has dragged her 25-year-old boyfriend to court for allegedly stealing over K154,000 which she obtained from two money lending institutions. Masinje Chileshe, a teacher at Nabulangu School in Kalomo, obtained the loans from AtlasMara and Extender Finance, which she planned to use to buy a house. Her boyfriend, Kelvin Hichoongo, is alleged to have stolen the money between September 3, 2018 and January 14, 2019 in Choma.

When the matter came up for trial before Principal Resident Magistrate Exnobert Zulu, Ms Chileshe said she entrusted her automated teller machine (ATM) card and pin with Mr Hichoongo, a businessman, while she went to conduct examinations in a remote area. Ms Chileshe said she obtained K84,000 from AtlasMara and K67,000 from Extender Finance with the hope that she would be having an income after investing despite the two financial institutions making deductions from her salary.

She told the court that Mr Hichoongo kept on withdrawing the money without her knowledge and used part of it to buy a light Mitsubishi Fuso truck registration number ACL 401.

Ms Chileshe said she also had over K20,000 in her account which accumulated from her four months’ salary since she is paid over K5,000, but Mr Hichoongo also withdrew it. She said she only learnt of the theft after obtaining a bank statement which revealed that she had no money in her account. And in his testimony, arresting officer Moonga Chizyuka said investigations through bank statements revealed that some of the money was being transferred to another bank account through mobile transactions.

“I believed her story because she gave out her pin and ATM card to her boyfriend and she could not do any transactions at that time because of where she was stationed,” he said. Mr Chizyuka said the accused, when interviewed, admitted that he was having his girlfriend’s ATM card and pin. “So I learnt during interviews that the complainant is not receiving anything as her salary because the two institutions are deducting all of her salary,” he said. Mr Chizyuka said the only transaction Ms Chileshe made after the examinations was a withdrawal of K12,000 over the counter.

But legal counsel from Legal Aid Board Melisa Tatila in crossexamination asked Mr Chizyuka whether he was aware that Ms Chileshe gave part of the money to Mr Hichoongo to pay as bride price to her family. Magistrate Zulu has since placed Mr Hichoongo on his defence and the matter has been adjourned to September 5.