Former President Robert Mugabe’s family business, Gushungo
Holdings, which was recently slapped with a $174 183 default judgement in
favour of a potato seed company, has successfully thwarted efforts to attach
its property after a successful High Court appeal.
Gushungo Holdings was on July 2, 2018 slapped with a
default judgement after failing to defend the litigation instituted by Seed Potato
Co-op (Pvt) Ltd in May this year. The company then applied for permission to
attach Mugabe’s property.
But through Gushungo Holdings’ representative Farai Jemwa,
Mugabe’s company submitted that it never received the summons demanding the
claimed amount and only read about the issue in a local paper.
Jemwa said it later turned out that the court papers had
been served on a person not employed by the family’s business.
On September 26, 2018, High Court judge Justice Benjamin
Chikowero confirmed the provisional order granted by the court on July 17.
According to the court papers, the default judgement
against Gushungo Holdings was granted by High Court judge Justice Joseph
Musakwa.
In its earlier claim, the seed company said during the
period between July and September 2015, it supplied Gushungo Holdings with 12
761 pockets of potato seed worth $382 830 of which Mugabe’s firm made part
payment, leaving a balance of $174 193.
Meanwhile, Gushungo Holdings recently petitioned the court
claiming $712 530 compensation from Seed Potato Co-op, accusing the company of
selling to it substandard seeds contrary to the parties’ agreement.
In its declaration, Gushungo Holdings said sometime in July
2015, it entered into an oral agreement with Seed Potato Co-op whereby the
latter allegedly agreed to supply quality potato seeds imported from South
Africa, but it later realised that it had been sold substandard seeds that
failed to produce the expected harvest.
The matter is pending. Standard
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