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Daniel Nemukuyu Senior Court Reporter
The High Court has provisionally stopped the sale of Chitungwiza Municipality property attached recently by the Sheriff to recover $600 000 owed to Metropolitan Bank.

The court halted the auction that was scheduled for yesterday to allow the parties to agree on terms of settling the debt. Chitungwiza owes Metropolitan Bank $600 000, a debt that accrued when the local authority sold the bank non-existent stands in the Nyatsime area.

The auctioneer had advertised the sale of the property, but the court stopped execution. This followed a successful urgent chamber application by the local authority’s lawyer Mr Rodgers Matsikidze of Matsikidze and Mucheche Legal Practitioners.

The Sheriff, on instructions of the bank’s lawyer Mr Wellington Pasipanodya of Manase and Manase, a fortnight ago attached and removed at least seven top-of-the-range vehicles and cleared the local authority’s head office of all furniture and equipment.

Chitungwiza “sold stands” to Metropolitan Bank around 2007 in the Nyatsime area, but the bank later realised that the allocation process was chaotic.

This was after council sold the same land to other people. Met Bank paid a total of $1 027 000 for 63 000 square metres of land, but the stands were never properly allocated. Chitungwiza paid part of the debt leaving an outstanding $600 000.

Currently, Nyatsime area is literally a war zone where those who genuinely paid for stands are being bullied and chased away by some illegal settlers who just mushroomed while council turned spectator.

Despite having received millions of dollars from desperate home seekers who were on the council’s waiting list, Chitungwiza has taken an armchair approach to the dispute.

Met Bank, which had made huge investments in the purchase of the stands, successfully sued Chitungwiza for the fraud. Seven vehicles belonging to directors, including a number of Toyota Fortuners, Prados and a Nissan Hardbody truck were removed from the council premises and driven to Revelation Auctions and KM Auctions.

Offices of the Town Clerk, Chamber Secretary, Finance Director and the Department of Health were the most affected and were left without any chair or table.

The attached property include fire tenders, a Land Rover Defender, front end loaders, Toyota Hilux D4D tow away vehicles, two Mitsubishi Lancer vehicles, A Hyundai, Ford Ranger truck and a Nissan Diesel (UD) truck.

Meanwhile, Harare City Council (HCC) has taken Chitungwiza Municipality to the High Court over an outstanding water bill amounting to $7,2million.

The two local authorities entered an agreement in which HCC would supply treated water to Chitungwiza daily. Chitungwiza would then sell the water to its residents.

In terms of the agreement, Chitungwiza would be billed for the water supplied monthly and it was expected to pay the bills religiously. Chitungwiza allegedly breached the agreement resulting in HCC lawyers Honey & Blanckenberg instituting legal proceedings to recover the debt.

The cash-strapped municipality owes its workers millions of dollars and it has, over the years, failed to pay up.

Other individual labour suits are still pending in court.