The WCB-Wasafi establishment cradle is rocking and this time not for the great hits that their artists are churning out with a jail term in the offing over unpaid debt.
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This time it is Diamond Platnumz’s manager Hamisi Shabaan Tale Tale, aka Babu Tale, who risks going to the coolers after failing to pay an 11-year debt of Sh250 million.
Babu Tale, who is a Member of Parliament for Morogoro South, escaped going to jail in 2018 after he agreed to pay the debt as ordered by the court which found him guilty of plagiarism.
In 2013, Sheikh Hashim Mbonde accused Babu Tales’ events and entertainment company, Tip Top Connection Company Limited, of using his recorded religious video clips for business purposes without his approval, in the process infringing on the cleric’s intellectual property.
As a result of the suit filed on February 18, 2016, a Dar es Salaam court found Babu Tale guilty of illegally using Sheikh Mbonde’s teachings for commercial gains.
The judgment was arrived at after three years of litigation, but even then Babu Tale ignored the court’s ruling.
Judge Augustine Shangwa, consequently, ordered Babu Tale to pay Sheikh Mbonde Sh250 million in compensation.
However, six years later, he had not paid a dime and an arrest warrant was issued. In May 2018 he was arrested for contempt of court and detained at the Central police post in Dar es Salaam before being presented to the court.
To date, Tale is yet to pay the cleric even after the High Court on August 17, 2022, affirmed the decision issued by the lower court.
Tale moved to the Court of Appeal to appeal against the High Court’s decision, but his plea was struck out.
Sheikh Mbonde has now filed a fresh case requesting the court to order Tale’s arrest and have him jailed for not paying him.
