adminMidlands Correspondent
Shabanie Mine has resumed evicting former employees from company houses after the Zvishavane magistrate court granted the company an eviction order.
The workers had ignored earlier eviction notices.
Six families have already been evicted following the latest order.
Shabanie Mine wants the former employees to move out of the houses to pave way for new workers who have been contracted by the company. However, the former workers are adamant that they want to be paid their outstanding salaries dating back to 2009 together with their severance packages before they could vacate the houses.
Last year Zvishavane magistrate Tavengwa Sangster ordered the eviction of the nine families from the company houses.
However, High Court judge, Justice Martin Makonese reversed the decision and granted a stay of execution. Shabanie Mine ex-employees’ representative, Alluwis Zhou, said the latest evictions are targeting former workers who are not protected by the High Court interdict.
He said the mine should pay them their outstanding salaries before they could move out of the houses.
“I can confirm that six families have been evicted from their houses by the Shabanie Mine management and they intend to evict more families. The families who have been evicted are not protected by the High Court order.
“We are shocked by the conduct of the mine management because they do not have any grounds to evict us since they owe us our salaries and pensions,” he said.
Zhou said the former employees had agreed with Mutumwa Mawere who is the former owner of the mine that they would own the houses after five years.
The affected families are contesting the evictions and have sought the services of lawyer Herbert Tafa of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.
Shabanie Mine is being represented by Patience Chigariro of Chigariro and Partners Legal Practitioners.
Efforts to get comment from ZMDC management were futile as they did not respond to questions e-mailed to them.
derick.khumalo