Deputy Mayor owes $2,400 in maintenance arrears

MDC-T Bulawayo provincial chairman, Gift Banda, who is also the city's deputy mayor, was yesterday fined $20 for contempt of court after skipping court last month for violating a maintenance order.

Banda, 45, of Burnside, allegedly owes his ex-lover, Kholiwe Sitshoni, $2,400 in maintenance arrears for the upkeep of their five-year-old daughter born out of wedlock.

Magistrate Tawanda Muchemwa fined Banda $20 for contempt of court and remanded him out of custody to October 23.

Banda and Sitshoni started their relationship in 2008, and it resulted in the birth of the baby girl.

Prosecuting, Busani Moyo said Banda neglected his daughter and Sitshoni took him to court in 2009. A court ordered him to make R1,500 monthly payments to Sitshoni.

"After the order was granted in 2009, Banda paid maintenance but started defaulting in August 2013," said Moyo.

The court heard that on January 27 this year, Banda was back in court to hear the maintenance order being revised. The child, now in Grade Zero, would receive $150 monthly and Banda was to also pay her school fees and medical bills.

Yesterday, the court heard that Banda defaulted and did not pay the school fees and medical bills over the last nine months. He is $2,400 in arrears, said Moyo.