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Sports Reporter
THE High Court in Harare has set Wednesday as the day on which Zifa’s application for sequestration will be heard.
Zifa last week suffered a technical hitch when the High Court struck off their application on the basis of some inadequacies linked to their bid to have the matter heard.
But in a notice released on Thursday, the matter has now been set down for July 6, just three days before the association’s top policy making body – the assembly also meets to take the correct and necessary steps to dissolve the bankrupt football body.
Zifa first made the application through their lawyer Stephen Zvinavakobvu and the association has in the last few days been actively pursuing the matter with the guidance of the Ministry of Sport and Recreation.
In the application that Zvinavakobvu of Zvinavakobvu Law Chambers filed, the soccer mother body applied for sequestration and surrender, in which they nominated Freddie Chimbari of Fremus Executor Services as an appropriate trustee to manage their affairs.
Zifa president Philip Chiyangwa deposed an affidavit narrating the woes that have been haunting the debt-ridden association whose operations have been weighed down by a soaring debt currently pegged at $6 million.
“Applicant has been exposed to litigation on numerous occasions and in the process, has lost money, goodwill, reputation and any assets of value and is now left with a depleted asset register which virtually has nothing, such that its liabilities, debts and obligations now far outweigh its assets.
“Put differently, the applicant is insolvent and cannot function.
“It is unable to meet its debts and the only option open to it is to simply surrender in terms of the law so that its life comes to an end thus bringing to an end the continuation of debts to pile up and to avoid further exposing service providers, creditors and other entities that are owed,” wrote Chiyangwa in his affidavit.
Chiyangwa noted that Zifa had been operating at a loss arguing that that even if all the remaining assets were to be sold, the debt could never be cleared.
“It is clear that even if the assets are to be sold, they cannot even meet an eighth of the liabilities. The situation cannot be turned around. It is just hopeless,” Chiyangwa said.
Some of Zifa’s major creditors include CBZ Bank who are owed a whopping $1,795,000; Pandhari Lodge($268,436) Vogel Weber ($21 000) the Zifa Ad-Hoc Committee ($600 000) Buymore Investments ($438,222) and led Led Travel and Tours who are claiming $244,527.
Zifa were however, reminded and reprimanded by the Ministry of Sport and Recreation of the need to observe Article 77 of their statutes which deals with maters of dissolution.
It is against the constitutional requirement of that article that the Zifa assembly will now meet again on July 9 in the capital to try and follow proper procedures.
That Article 77 on Dissolution states that:
1 Any decision relating to the dissolution of Zifa requires a majority of three quarters of all the Members of Zifa, which must be obtained at a Congress specially convened for the purpose.
2 If Zifa is disbanded, its assets shall be transferred to the Sport and Recreation Commission Zimbabwe. It shall hold these assets in trust as “bonus pater familiae’’ until Zifa is re-established. The final Congress may, however, choose another recipient for the assets on the basis of a three quarters majority,’’ reads the Article.
If their June 4 indaba had a technical flaw of having not been convened for the purposes of dissolution, the Zifa Assembly are now hoping that the July 9 meeting whose specific agenda is dissolution will set them on the path of doing the correct move.
Online Reporter