BY DESMOND CHINGARANDE THE Hatcliffe Consortium Residence Association has threatened to take legal action against Zanu PF members Nyasha Chikwinya and Jonathan Gapare for allegedly attempting to swindle them of their money.
The residents accused the two of reinventing original land sale agreements they entered into with homeseekers who bought residential stands in the area.
Chikwinya is the director of Pilgrims Rest Hatcliff Housing Scheme and Gapare represents Alpha International Land Developers.
The 40 residents, represented by lawyer Agency Gumbo, wrote to the two Zanu PF-linked companies telling them to reverse their letters of demand or else they would approach the Ministry of Local Government for recourse.
“Our clients advise of a letter of demand written by yourselves (Chikwinya and Gapare) demanding that several of our clients attend to your offices for a payment plan, which is purportedly aimed at preventing legal action. Some of our clients have been receiving endless calls from your offices with unclear payment demands,” the lawyers wrote.
“From the letters parcelled to several of our clients, it is quite appalling that your company has chosen to re-invent the-original agreements entered into in respect of the residential stands in issue. Not only have you decided to advise of a new purchase price of US$15 000, but you (Chikwinya and Gapare) have disregarded a government directive that barred you from collecting any monies from Hatcliffe Consortium residents.
“Further, you have not furnished our clients with any reconciliation of the various payments made in respect of their various residential stands. You seem to have simply plucked figures from thin air with no clear methodology to account for actual payments made to yourselves by our clients. Our clients unequivocally contest the figure of US$15 000 alleged as the purchase price of stands allocated over 10 years ago under various housing cooperative schemes,” the lawyers said.
Gumbo said his clients were not receiving any services from the City of Harare and were now living like squatters despite investing a lot of money on the stands.
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“It has also come to our attention that there is a claim by yourselves that you purchased the land in issue from government. Our clients query this assertion and consequently instruct that we pursue the matter with the Ministry of Local government. Having stated our clients’ position with regards your several demands for payments, our clients have instructed us to demand that you retract the several letters of demand issued to the individuals stated above within seven days of receipt of this letter,” the lawyers added.
The Zanu PF members are yet to respond to the issue.
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