VP Mphoko’s Choppies, church fight over premises

By Tendai Kamhungira

GWERU – Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko’s Choppies Supermarkets are on a collision course with Christlove Church, as the two fight over renting premises in Gweru’s Mkoba suburb.

The church, through its lawyer Simon Simango, has filed a High Court application seeking to bar Choppies from carrying out construction works at the premises and taking occupation.

According to court papers, the church was renting the premises from Catering Industry Pension Fund since October 2012.

However, in December last year, Catering Industry Pension Fund terminated the lease and entered into negotiations with Choppies.

This did not go down well with the church, which filed a court application seeking to bar Choppies from occupying the premises. The church argued in court papers that it still has a subsisting lease agreement with Catering Industry Pension Fund.

In an affidavit, the church’s secretary-general Patrick Chiremba said Catering Industry Pension Fund and Choppies, acting in connivance, clandestinely attempted dispossessing the church’s use of the premises on April 20 this year.

Chiremba told the court that the respondents went to the premises and started digging trenches, placing pit sand and other building material, making the premises inhabitable for the church and its congregants.

He said that the place has been rendered a death trap for children.

“Applicant is well-advised which advice it accepts that it is a fundamental principle that no man is allowed to take the law into his own hands. Nobody is allowed to dispossess another forcibly or wrongfully and against his own consent of the possession of property whether movable or immovable,” Chiremba said.

The church wants an eviction notice issued by Catering Industry Pension Fund to be declared null and void and that the company should not enter in any other lease agreement with a third party, while the lease with the church is still in existence.

“The respondents be and are hereby barred from carrying out construction works at the… leased premises whilst applicant is in occupation,” reads part of the church’s request.

The application will be heard today before the High Court. Daily News