‘My Wife Misuses Rental Money’

A man of Lusaka’s Chunga Township stirred laughter in a fully-packed Matero local court when he said he was sure that one day he would spend a night outside if he remained married to his wife.
Lewis Kawisha, 42, told the court that his wife was so careless with money that she even used to misuse money for rentals.
This was heard when the matter came before magistrate Lewis Mumba and Pauline Newa when Kawisha sued his wife Sara Nalwimba,33, for divorce.
The two got married in 2001 and have four children together and that problems in their marriage started shortly after their wedding.
“I am sure that one day my children and I will spend the night outside because my wife does not know how to use money and what hurts me is that she even forgets to pay rentals for the house we stay in,” he said.
Kawisha said his wife was also in the habit of getting things on credit without his permission and that there was nothing tangible she was doing with the money.
He said relatives had tried to talk to her over the issue but she wasn’t getting any better.
“I want divorce because I’m tired of her even my relatives don’t like her because of her behaviour,” he said.
In her statement Nalwimba told the court that she was not willing to divorce her husband because the children were still young.
She said from the time her husband abandoned them, the children were suffering and moving from one house to another in search of shelter and food.
The children are at the moment not even going to school because her husband had refused to pay their school fees.
She added that her husband left her in a rented house and the landlord chased her and was currently demanding the unpaid rentals.
“My husband abandoned us after he got himself a job, right now the landlord is on my neck demanding his money,” she said.
Magistrate Lewis Mumba granted the two divorce and ordered Kawisha to compensate Nalwimba with K14,000.
The custody of the children was given to Nalwimba and Kawisha was ordered to be maintaining them with K500.