No bride price due to load shedding

A LUSAKA man has blamed power outages to his failure to pay bride price as the situation has seen him fail in his business.
Fredrick Chisulo, 34, of Kalingalinga told Senior Court Magistrates Pauline Newa and Lewis Mumba that he has been placed on forced leave because the company he works for has been adversely affected due to load shedding.

Chisulo was narrating in a case in which he was sued by Edson Simwami, 62, of Zingalume Township for failure to pay bride price, years into their marriage.
Chisulo, who works for a bakery, pledged to settle the bride price once load shedding ends.

“Zesco has caused problems for me; I have been put on leave because of load-shedding and since I am out of employment I don’t have any other source of income,” he said as the packed court room burst into laughter.

In his statement, Simwami told the court that he wants the money to be paid especially that his daughter has since passed on.
“After my daughter died, our families met to discuss the way forward and it was agreed that Chisulo pays K3,000 with the instalment of K1,000 on May 1 but nothing was forthcoming,” he said.

In passing judgment, the court upheld the claim and ordered Chisulo to pay the K3,000 in monthly instalments of K300 starting August month end.

Daily Mail