Zanu PF councillor offers to pay maintenance with a bucket of maize

 A businessman and a councillor from Bubi District Councillor Abednico Maphosa stunned the court yesterday when he offered to substitute with a bucket of maize a monthly maintenance fee of $240 that his estranged wife, Busiso is demanding for the upkeep of their children.

Standing before Bulawayo magistrate Mr Victor Mpofu, the brazen Clr Maphosa of Zanu-PF, who had been dragged to court by his wife for failing to maintain his family for the past nine years, told the magistrate that he could not afford to pay $240 every money.

 "Your Worship, I cannot afford to pay $240 that the applicant is demanding for the monthly upkeep of our three children as I am already overburdened. I am actually paying school fees for two children who are at the University of Zimbabwe. I am a farmer and therefore can only manage to supply my family with a bucket of maize and other farm produce for their upkeep.

"The respondent (Busiso) is running a very successful dressmaking business in town and I believe she can also take care of herself and our children," said Councillor Maphosa.

Councillor Maphosa told the court that he was struggling to make ends meet, arguing that he was running a tuck-shop, which was not making any profits.

"Your Worship, I am surviving from hand to mouth as my tuckshop business is not making any money that can enable me and my children to live a decent life," he said.

However, Busiso was quick to refute the claim by her husband when she told the court that Clr Maphosa was operating three shops in Inyathi.

"My husband is lying before the court. In fact he is operating three stores and making profits yet he is failing to pay rent for our house and utility bills. As I speak we live in darkness as we owe Zesa $3 000 in electricity bills among other utility bills while my sisters in the Diaspora are actually helping me by paying school fees for our children who are at university.

"Maphosa fled our home nine years ago after I had discovered that he was cheating on me. In fact thereafter I insisted that we should have protected sex and that offended him resulting in him abandoning me and the children and it is nine years now since he left his home and he is not looking after us. He spends a lot of his money on women and in most cases he proposes love to his workers and sleeps around with several women in the village," said Mrs Maphosa.

In his judgment, Mr Mpofu ordered Maphosa to pay $210 including groceries for the upkeep of his children.

Last year Clr Maphosa made headlines when villagers in Inyathi teamed up against him for allegedly snatching the wife of a local villager after her husband got paralysed from the waist down.

Clr Maphosa had allegedly approached Mr Patrick Mafu and said he wanted to offer his wife, Ms Nomzamo Nyathi a job at his store so that she could assist in fending for the family as they had two children of school going age.

He then went on to propose love to Ms Nyathi and the two fell in love.