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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Operation Murambatsvina - Countrywide evictions of urban poor - Index of articles
High
Court ruling, a blow for Mbare poor
The
Standard (Zimbabwe)
August 06, 2006
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=11&id=4420&siteid=1
THE High Court
has thrown out an application to stop the Harare City Council from
evicting a second-generation occupant of Matapi Flats in Mbare in
a judgment that deals a blow to 150 others facing a similar predicament.
The number of
affected people could be higher as occupants stay with their families
and relatives in the overcrowded flats.
The case filed
by Farai Pindehama assisted by the Zimbabwe
NGO Forum was being used as a test case, just days before the
eviction notices issued out to the occupants on 27 June expired.
The council said
it would evict occupants who failed to produce Certificates of Occupation
anytime after 31 July. Most of the occupants inherited the flats
from their parents or relatives who were issued with the certificates
before independence, in accordance with the Salisbury African Township
Act.
In court, Pindehama
argued that he had been paying rent over the years and council was
accepting that rent, meaning that it acknowledged that he was a
legal tenant.
But Justice Lawrence
Kamocha dismissed the application after he found no basis to grant
the urgent chamber application following an undertaking by the council
to follow laid down procedures in the evictions. This involved applying
to the rent board for a certificate to evict and giving proper notices
to Pindehama.
No-one would be
indiscriminately evicted, the council pledged.
Precious Shumba,
a spokesperson of the Combined
Harare Residents’ Association said while the occupants of the
flats would not win their case in courts since they did not have
certificates of occupation, they did not expect council to honour
its undertaking.
"We are not taking
council seriously. The council has not been following court orders
in the past. We foresee a situation where the occupants will be
indiscriminately removed. This is a continuation of Operation
Murambatsvina," Shumba said.
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