PROMINENT Bulawayo businessman, Delma Lupepe, has been slapped with a three-month civil imprisonment term for failing to service a $280 000 debt with Ecobank.
BY CHARLES LAITON
Harare High Court judge, Justice Isaac Muzenda ordered Lupepe’s incarceration on June 27 in adefault judgment after the businessman missed the March 21 deadline he had been given.
Justice Muzenda also ordered the businessman to pay legal costs.
“Whereupon after reading documents filed of record and hearing counsel it is ordered that: judgment be and is, hereby, entered for plaintiff (Ecobank) against the defendant (Lupepe) for a decree for civil imprisonment for a period of 90 days against the defendant until he shall have paid the sum of $280 946,67 together with interest thereon at the rate of 35% per annum from October 12, 2017 to date of payment together with costs of suit on a legal practitioner and client scale by virtue of a High Court order dated March 26, 2012 under case number HC630/11 whichever happens first,” Justice Muzenda said.
Early this year, the financial institution summoned Lupepe to the High Court in Harare, seeking his imprisonment for defying a six-year-old court order. The court then gave him until March 21 to pay up.
Lupepe, however, ignored the ultimatum, prompting the bank through its lawyers Danziger and Partners, to approach the court again seeking his incarceration, leading to a default judgment made on June 27.
According to court papers, sometime last year, the same bank also petitioned the court seeking Lupepe’s ejectment from its property at 4 Bunting Close, Matsheumhlope in Bulawayo over an $18 000 rental debt.
