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Patrick Chitumba, [email protected]

Fifty-year-old *Mrs Nomatter Ngoni from Mkoba 12 suburb in Gweru was surprised one morning to see a truck from the Messenger of Court arrive at her gate.

Due to her swollen legs, she slowly made her way outside. Unaware of the purpose of their visit, she was taken aback when they informed her that she had failed to pay her rates and other services to Gweru City Council (GCC) and had not responded to the final letter of demand left at her residence a week prior, leading to the unexpected legal action.

“I live with my grandson and believed he was indeed going to the revenue hall to pay our bills. I was shocked when they came to attach my property saying I owe the ZiG3 600 plus charges added by the Messenger of Court,” said Mrs Ngoni.

She said she visited the Mkoba 16 revenue hall and was devastated to learn that her grandson, a school drop-out, had not been paying GCC bills for the past six months.“My grandson was taking advantage of the situation because I struggle to walk and I’m losing my eyesight. He is aware that I am not capable of going through these statements from council,” she said.

Mrs Ngoni said she managed to get assistance from her relatives who paid the whole amount before her household property was returned. She is one of scores of residents whose property was recently attached by the Messenger of Court working under the instruction of GCC.

The local authority in the past two weeks has sent 300 summons with the intention of forcing residents to settle their bills. GCC said the Government owes in excess of ZiG17 million, industry ZiG22 million, commercial ratepayers ZiG57 million and residents about ZiG68 million, a development that is affecting service delivery.

Commenting on the summons sent to residents, GCC public relations and communications officer Ms Vimbai Chingwaramusee said it is not the court that attaches property but the local authority that has been deprived of and goes to court to apply for enforcement of payment through a summoning process.

“From final demand which is not paid in full, Council proceeds to apply for summons known as summon commencing action which when granted by the Magistrates Court, council serves them through the Messenger of Court.

“The summon commencing action gives the defendant seven days either to defend him/herself or pay up. If the seven days pass without either of the two happening, Council moves on to the second stage of applying again for a default judgement through the Magistrates Court.

When a default judgement is granted, execution follows therefore through the warrant of attachment against property which is the third and final summon process. When a warrant of attachment against property known as Writ is granted, Council forwards again to the Messenger of Court for enforcement and execution of the warrant,” she explained.

Ms Chingwaramusee said the MoC serves the warrants and gives the defendant (debtor) not less than 48 hours to clear both GCC debt as granted by the court and Messenger of Court serving fees. She added that failure to clear these two results in the attached property being physically removed to the Messenger of Court storage facility.

“Failure to clear these two debts (City of Gweru and Messenger of Court charges) results in auctioning to defray both expenses and Messenger of Court fees. Please note at all the stages council goes to court (three times) costs are involved where council pumps out money to the Messenger of Court before the debtor even pays a single cent,” she highlighted.

In the past two weeks, Ms Chingwaramusee said areas summoned include greater Mkoba (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 infill,14, 16 and 17), Shamrock, Ascot, Clifton Park, Montrose, Mambo and a few companies.
“Please note the first summon — thus summon commencing action was done in February 2024 which remained uncleared after issuance of final demands with red stickers,” she said.

Ms Chingwaramusee said some landlords are not supervising their tenants in terms of payments of council bills as they only focus on collecting their rentals and ignore monthly council bills being consumed.

She noted that some landlords collect both the rentals and the councils’ dues but never pay GCC.
“Some tenants just do not pay. Many properties and households are being manned by lodgers and child headed families whereby parents are out and bills then accumulate.

In theses scenarios, either tenants or the children staying at these properties do not pay their bills no matter how much they receive statements, final demands and even summons. They all allege that they just see the warrant and not statements, or summons commencing action,” she said.

Ms Chingwaramusee said debtors who engage GCC do so to ask for grace periods and still end up not making any payments.“It’s unfortunate that one household would have three to four payment plans but zero payments. People just want a paper that they never honour,” she said.

Ms Chingwaramusee said between 60 to 70 percent of the cases issued with summons clear their summons, between commencing action and default judgement. She said 30 percent do not clear up until attachment.

“From the 30 percent, only up to 10 percent clear before removal of property. The remaining 20 percent either pay after removal of property or never pay at all and never go after their property,” she said.
Gweru Residents Trust chairperson Mr Anthony Madzivanyika said there is a need for the local authority to conduct awareness campaigns educating residents on the need to settle their bills so as to avoid litigation.

“Some of these residents are old and can’t follow the statements from GCC which results in children or relatives taking advantage of the situation. Some residents just don’t want to settle their bills yet they want proper service delivery. We need to work together for a win win situation,” he said.
*Not her real name