JUDAS DAUGHTER: Court jails church treasurer for stealing R800k tithes and offerings.

By Charles Segun Adegbite

A Zimbabwean woman, Lady Memory Mutsika, has been sentenced to three years imprisonment by Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in South Africa for, among other crimes, stealing church tithes and offerings.

   Mutsika, 43, was a church treasurer of the Pretoria City Seventh-Day Adventist church, who was on Wednesday, November 9, imprisoned for 128 counts of theft.

 Her responsibilities as the church treasurer, included transferring tithe and offering money deposited to the church account, to the Northern Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

  According to National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson in South Africa, Lumka Mahanjana,  this woman, in less than four years (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.

 However, she pleaded guilty to the charges in court and asked for a non-custodial sentence to pay the church back the money over five years.

The  prosecuting attorney argued that Mutsika always indicated her willingness to pay back the money and has not paid back a single cent since March 2022, after she was convicted.

 The magistrate agreed with the state and said Mutsika showed no remorse. He said she stopped stealing not because of her conscience, but because she was caught. The church placed her in a position of trust, but she betrayed that trust.

The NPA spokesperson said further 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."

Additional report from Independent Online www.iol.co.za