By MAYA NTANDA –

TWENTY-FIVE workers at the Kitwe City Council (KCC) have applied for an interlocutory injunction restraining the local authority and former town clerk Ali Simwinga from evicting them from the council farm.
Alexander Masani and 24 others applied in the Kitwe High Court to restrain the respondents from evicting them from the former council farm situated across Kafue Bridge near Bulangililo Township water works.
The plaintiffs, who include former and serving employees of the council, said KCC accommodated them in small housing units within the former council farm, as employees and have occupied the same for periods ranging between 18 and 48 years.
They said Mr Simwinga claims to have acquired the farm including the housing units and KCC has not notified the applicants about the area being sold to the former town clerk.
The plaintiffs said they have been sitting tenants for a long time of the former council and applied to be given priority offers to buy the housing units they occupied.
“On April 7 this year, we were taken unaware by being handed letters of eviction notice giving us seven days ultimatum to vacate the area and housing units.
“The first respondent has appointed some people as his caretakers or agent who have started harassing and victimising the applicants calling for our quick vacation,” said the plaintiffs.
They, however, stated that they did not wish to tussle over occupancy of the piece of land but instead to seek indulgence of the court to let KCC find alternative land for them to relocate.
And in his affidavit in opposition, Mr Simwinga, who is Zambia’s ambassador to Egypt, said he was the registered owner of plot 19168/M having bought it from KCC.
He said on April 23, he held a meeting with the applicants to formalise their stay at his farm by paying some rentals.
Mr Simwinga said the applicants had no legal right or claim to the property as the houses and structures they were occupying and the fields cultivating fell in his farm.
He said the applicants had not shown that they would suffer irreparable damage if the order of injunction was not granted.
The matter comes up on July 1 before Judge Isaac Kamwendo for hearing.