SATA ESTATE MYSTERY

THE value of the estate left by late President Michael Sata is a mystery to the children and other beneficiaries, claims Petronnela Mpundu who has deposed in the Lusaka High Court as widow of the fifth head of State of Zambia.
Mukupa and Salome Sata, children of Ms Mpundu, have sued former first lady Dr Christine Kaseba, and State House deputy minister Mulenga Sata, in the High Court for being sidelined in the activities and decisions surrounding the estate of their father.
Ms Mpundu has told the Lusaka High Court that since Mr Sata died intestate on October 28 2014 there has been no of the assets to be considered in the determination of sharing amongst all the beneficiaries.
She explained that as a widow of the late president, she and her two children deserved to know the value of the estate left behind by her husband in order to understand what they were entitled to.
Ms Mpundu explained that since the appointment of Dr Kaseba and Mulenga Sata as administrators, her two children with the late head of state aged 17 and 10 respectively have not received any form of financial or other assistance from their father’s estate since his death which has left them near- destitute.
She said the deceased maintained a close relationship with his children and his extended family throughput their lives, and especially that they were both minors, and were since birth in her custody, they fully maintained by their father until his demise.
She charged that after the funeral, the administrators only request accounts details of the children for the distribution of their purported share of their father’s estate despite the absence of a full declaration of the actual value of the estate.
She disclosed that Cabinet wrote a confidential letter acknowledging that the deceased was the father the children and that he had even employed a driver to be taking the children to school. He had also created a trust for them.
She complained that the details of the trust had not been released to her despite several attempts to get details from the administrators. “That on 2nd February 2016, I received a letter from the respondents requesting for the account information of the children for the distribution of the estate of the deceased. “They allocated K105,516.67 to each child as well as US$16,304 and K39,460.59 to each child without showing proper valuation of the estate,” the court document states.
Ms Mpundu explained that she was not included in the division of the money in the various accounts as she was not included among the deceased’s dependants, showing clearly how she was left out of the estate, including its full value.
Ms Mpundu lamented about her challenges in meeting her children’s school requirements and other daily needs since the passing away of their father, and that Dr Kaseba, Mulenga and the Attorney General have all failed to support the children as administrators of their father’s estate.
She said her children were both minors under the age of 17 years and so required more assistance than the older children’s entitlements in the estate of the late president.
She has since applied for an injunction to restrain the three administrators from taking any further action on the estate of the late President until the matter is determined.

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