adminMashudu Netsianda Senior Court Reporter
THREE leading hotels in Victoria Falls — The Kingdom Hotel, The Victoria Falls Hotel and Elephant Hills Hotel are allegedly failing to service their water and rates accounts with the local authority resulting in the council instituting legal proceedings to recover its money. Victoria Falls Municipality dragged the three hospitality industry firms to court for failing to pay more than $380,000 in rates and water charges accrued over an unspecified period.
The local authority, which is the plaintiff in the matter, this week filed summons at the Bulawayo High Court citing The Kingdom Hotel, The Victoria Falls Hotel and Elephant Hills Hotel as the defendants.
Victoria Falls Municipality is demanding $166,457.51 from Elephant Hills and $125,676.32 from The Victoria Falls Hotel. The Kingdom Hotel has a cumulative debt of $91,762.63.
The municipality, in its summons filed through their lawyers Dube and Company Legal Practitioners, said the three hotels had continuously failed, refused or neglected to settle the outstanding amounts despite demand.
“Plaintiff supplied water and other services to the defendants and charged in accordance with the Urban Councils Act. The Victoria Falls Hotel owes a total of $125,676.32 while Elephant Hills and The Kingdom Hotel have an outstanding amount of $166,457.51 and $91,762.63 respectively,” said the council’s lawyers.
According to the court papers, Victoria Falls is demanding that the three hospitality firms pay the debts with prescribed interest calculated from the date the summons were issued to the date of full and final payment and cost of suit at attorney-client scale.
The three hotels have not yet filed notices to enter an appearance to defend the summons.
Last month, Victoria Falls Municipality rejected pressure from the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) to reverse rates that tourism operators in the resort town say are very high.
The local authority argued that it acted within the confines of the law in crafting its 2015 budget which was approved by the government, hence could not reverse it.
A few weeks ago, the Victoria Falls business community that is dominated by tour operators, hotels and lodges, threatened to withdraw various charity work and developmental projects in the resort town after council hiked rates by more than 500 percent.
A meeting between the local authority and tourism operators aimed at finding common ground ended abruptly during the same week after ZTA chief executive officer, Karikoga Kaseke declared a stalemate when council treasurer, Thembinkosi Khumalo accused him of presiding over a kangaroo court.
Sidumisile Mabena