Lusaka Mayor Miles Sampa’s ex-wife has argued that his request for the Lusaka High Court to reduce child maintenance from K7,000 per month to K1,500 is ill-founded because no circumstances have changed since the ruling was granted early this year.

Mwika Mwenechanya has therefore asked the court not to vary the ruling on maintenance.

In this matter, Mwenechanya had asked the Lusaka High Court to to cite Sampa for contempt and order the Lusaka City Council to be dedicating K7,000 from the mayor’s monthly salary for the maintenance of their child.

As the result, the court ordered Sampa to be maintaining his child with K7,000, monthly.

But in September this year, Sampa asked the court to vary the maintenance order dated April 23, which ordered him to be paying child maintenance of K7,000 per month, lamenting that he has been struggling to provide necessities for his other children and his up keep due to the monthly expenses.

He asked the court to reduce the monthly maintenance to K1,500 to enable him equally and properly maintain his other four children and himself.

According to an affidavit in support of summons for an order to vary the maintenance order, Sampa explained that his salary income was K20,000, and as a mayor of Lusaka, his personal monthly expenses on food and clothing only, was K8,000, adding that he had four other children who also depended on his monthly income.

He stated that he intended to raise all his five children equally and fairly without appearing to be favoring anyone.

But in an affidavit in support of notice of motion to raise preliminary issue filed this month, Mwenechanya stated that Sampa’s application to vary maintenance order was ill-founded as there had been no change in circumstances that had arisen since the granting of the maintenance order.

“That I verily believe as advised by my advocates that in the circumstances, this court may not vary the ruling on maintenance based on the same facts and circumstances that were presented to the court and upon which this court made its determination and granted ruling dated April 23, 2019,” the affidavit read.

She stated that as such, she had instructed her advocates to raise preliminary issues on the said application before court.

And in her notice of motion to raise preliminary issue, Mwenechanya asked whether or not it was an abuse of court process for Sampa to seek to re-litigate issues that have been already determined by the court in its ruling and which issues were based on the same facts and circumstances as at the time of the ruling.

She asked whether or not the court could entertainment Sampa’s application when he being dissatisfied with the ruling, ought to have appealed against the court’s ruling within the required time frame.

Mwenechanya stated that at the hearing of her application, she would ask that Sampa’s request be dismissed with costs.