admin
Tendai Gukutikwa
Post Reporter
MUTARE High Court last week on Thursday issued an order barring Knowstics Group of Schools from further demolishing buildings and structures belonging to their former landlord at Herbert Chitepo Farm in Bonda, where the academy’s girls high school operated from.
High Court judge, Justice Isaac Muzenda ordered the academy to remove all the rubble and debris it left behind when it demolished some buildings.
However, on Wednesday, which was six days later, the debris was yet to be removed and the property owners, Manicaland Development Association (MDA)’s legal representative, Mr Chris Ndlovu of Gonese and Ndlovu Legal Practitioners, said the academy was in defiance of the court order.
In the previous order, the court had also directed the academy to remove its furniture by the last day of August 2023.
The academy failed to comply as furniture was strewn all over the ground around the former school yard at the deserted property on Wednesday morning.
In an interview, Mr Ndlovu said once the seven days lapse, they will approach the Sheriff with the order so that the furniture will be removed from his client’s property.
“They have already failed to comply with the court’s order which stipulated that their furniture should have been removed from my client’s property by last week Thursday. And as of today (Wednesday), they have not yet cleared the rubble as was ordered by the court, which means they are defiant. Their seven days will lapse tomorrow (Thursday), and we will take legal action if the rubble and furniture is still there,” he said.
The fall-out between Knowstics Group of Schools and MDA emanates from the former’s failure to pay rentals in time for months.
When MDA evicted the school using legal channels, all hell broke loose.
After a court settlement, they paid the rentals and interest which were more than US$60 000 or the equivalent in local currency, but the eviction order remained in place.
Upon eviction, Knowstics Group of Schools wanted to be compensated for the buildings they had constructed at the property, contrary to the lease agreement which they had signed before occupying the property.
Reads part of the lease agreement: “All newly constructed buildings and other facilities will be at lessee’s cost and will become MDA property on termination of agreement.
“MDA will not refund Knowstics Academy all its capital expenditure on construction of new buildings, other constructed facilities and renovations at the learning centre.”
The group of schools demolished the new buildings they had built and removed asbestos from the old buildings at the farm.
They also demolished some of the buildings they had renovated.
The premises had a sub-station that the tenants had reportedly constructed, but that was also removed, together with the electricity poles.
In her founding affidavit for an urgent chamber application for the interdict, MDA’s programmes manager, Mrs Tsitsi Tsoriyo said Knowstics Academy had demolished some of the buildings, collected the bricks, windows frames and usable door frames, thereby causing irreparable damage to infrastructure.
“They also removed plumbing and electrical installations and materials. They are literally stripping the place bare.
“They have no legal or legitimate cause to act in the manner they did or are doing. There is irreparable harm. The stripping of the buildings and structures has obvious structural implications and damages that are too ghastly to contemplate,” reads the application.
The application also stated that the two parties had agreed that the tenant would leave the farm buildings in good usable order.
Co-director of Knowstics Group of Schools, Mrs Edith Mukuwapasi declined to comment and hung up her phone.
Subsequent attempts to contact her were unsuccessful as she did not answer the phone.
However, a call to the school on the pretext that the reporter was looking for a place for her child revealed that the girls high school is now operating from the boys high school quarters, a stone’s throw away from Herbert Chitepo Farm.
Online Reporter