The Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crimes Court has sentenced a Zimbabwean woman to three years in jail for stealing R800 000 from church tithes and offering.
According to Lumka Mahanjana, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson, 43-year-old Lady Memory Mutsika, had been charged with 128 counts of theft.
Mahanjana said Mutsika was a church treasurer of the Pretoria City Seventh-Day Adventist church.
Her responsibilities included transferring tithe and offering money deposited to the church account, to the Northern Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist church.
“During a period of four years from 2012 to 2015, Mutsika transferred more than R800 000 of the money received from the tithe and offerings to her bank account and for her personal use,” she said.
In court Mutsika pleaded guilty and asked the court for non-custodial sentence to pay the church back the money over a five-year period.
However, the state argued that Mutsika always indicated her willingness to pay back the money and has not paid a single cent since March 2022, after she was convicted.
The magistrate said the church placed Mutsika in a position of trust, but she betrayed that trust.
“The magistrate agreed with the state and said Mutsika showed no remorse. She stopped stealing because not because of her conscience but because she was caught. The church placed her in a position of trust, but she betrayed that trust,” Mahanjana said.
“He further said that he viewed Mutsika’s willingness to pay back the money, as a bargaining tool and as a ticket to keep her out of prison. Therefore, a sentence of imprisonment was appropriate and criminal conduct has consequences.”
Source: The South African, IOL, The Citizen, image from Twitter: @AfriNuus