Beatific
Gumbwanda
CHIREDZI– A well-known
Chiredzi sugarcane farmer and war veteran, Boniface Mutemachani and Nyaradzo Funeral
Services are in a nasty fight as the former claims the latter disbursed his
reimbursement to the wrong person.
Mutemachani, who had sought the
services of Nyaradzo when his wife died early this year, is claiming that the
life assurance company owes him over $75 000.
Nyaradzo was allegedly supposed
to pay $128 750 to Mutemachani but went on to pay $53 150, leaving a balance
which they allegedly paid to a different customer.
Through his lawyer, Emmanuel
Chibudu of the Kwirira and Magwaliba Law Chambers, Muterachani has filed a
claim of $75 600 against Nyaradzo, a balance of the initial amount of $128 750 which
he alleges was supposed to cover all the funeral processes.
According to the plaintiff’s
claim, he paid the money in three phases, $50 000 and $30 000 on January 16, 2021,
and $48 750 on the 18th of the same month.
“On the 16th of
January 2021, the plaintiff made a transfer of ZWL$50 000.00 to the defendant’s
account. On the same date, the plaintiff again made another transfer of ZWL$30
000.00 into the defendant’s account.
“On the 18th of
January 2021, the plaintiff again made a transfer of ZWL$48 750.00 into the
defendant’s account. These monies were being paid to the defendant by the
plaintiff pursuant to funeral services for the plaintiff’s wife and the
defendant was to provide the services.
“The defendant then produced an
invoice on the 19th of January showing that of the transferred
money, a total of ZWL53 150.00was used leaving a balance of ZWL$75 600.00. At that material time, neither the plaintiff
nor his late wife had an account with the defendant for funeral services.
“The plaintiff made a formal
demand of the balance on the 20th of April 2021. The defendant
however refused or neglected to pay the plaintiff his balance despite the
demand,” read the claim.
Contacted for comment, Nyaradzo
Funeral Services Public Relations Officer, Justin Muchazivepi said they are
following due process in dealing with the matter and confirmed that they
reimbursed the balance to the deceased’s younger sister.
“The information we gathered so
far is that the refund was paid to the claimant’s younger wife’s sister who was
dealing with the funeral arrangements. His son who made the payment told our
team that ‘mainini’ was in charge and
our team did everything in good faith. We are attending to the issue and we are
very hopeful of an amicable resolution,” said Muchazivepi.
Boniface Mutemachani (Jnr) who
was responsible for the financial affairs refuted claims that he gave them an
order to pay the amount to his younger sister’s mom and argued that he was
being consulted by the defendant whenever she takes an step but failed to alert
him that they were about to reimburse the balance to his mother’s sister.
“I was kept abreast of the
process by Nyaradzo but unfortunately when it came to the refund, they left me
out of the equation,” said Boniface.
