Widow defies police

By NATION REPORTER CHILESHE Chimfwembe Nkoloma, the widow who has been dragged to the Victim Support Unit (VSU) by three women who each had a child with her late husband yesterday refused to appear before the unit at Lusaka Central Police Station where she was summoned.

Ms Nkoloma is alleged to have disposed of property and failed to give the appropriate allocations of the shares to the children of the deceased as agreed in a High Court consent judgment.

The court had ruled that the net proceeds of the property, an estate of late Mupeta Nkoloma of plot number 6426/1 Vubu road, Emmasdale in Lusaka, among others, be distributed with the children getting 65 percent and the surviving spouse 35 percent after being sold.

However, despite the High Court consent judgment specifying how the property should be shared, the widow has allegedly neglected to share, as directed under the consent order, and has further allegedly changed one property into her own name without authority or recourse of the beneficiaries.

The three then reported the matter to Police VSU at Kabwata police where the complainants felt that the officers mismanaged the case when Ms Nkoloma was summoned as the officers there allegedly told the women that their children were lucky to get whatever sum was being offered by the widow.

One of the women told Daily Nation yesterday when contacted, that the trio decided to instead report the matter at Central police because the officer at Kabwata police was only advising them to accept whatever was being offered even when Ms Nkoloma had failed to produce evidence of the exact amounts involved. “We asked her to show us the letter of sale for the properties but nothing.

She claims that part of the money went to the lawyers, ZRA and other expenses but has still failed to show us the receipts we demanded for,” she said.

Ms Nkoloma yesterday totally refused to appear before the law when summoned to report herself at Central police VSU at 10: 00 hours only texting the dealing officer that she was not going to make it, with complaints that the women had exposed the matter in the media.

Facts of the matter are that the three women, Juliet Nsemiwe, Ruth Simunji and Mwaka Mvula are fighting for the rights of their individual children aged between seven and 10 years to get shares from their late father’s estate.

The women had earlier told Daily Nation in separate interviews that it was inhuman for Ms Nkoloma to allegedly go against a High Court order and dispose of property and not share with all the rightful beneficiaries, who in this case include their children.