RUSAPE More than 40 small-scale farmers in Makoni district had their farming equipment and livestock worth thousands of American dollars seized by the Makoni Rural District Council following outstanding levies.The Rusape Messengers Court confiscated farming equipment including tractors, ploughs, harrows, cultivators, wheelbarrows and scotch-carts. Some farmers also lost their livestock. The property is expected to go under a public auction in early February 2010.
Evans Majoni confirmed the seizure and maintained that if the farmers did not pay up, the property would be auctioned to recover the councils money. The farmers chose to ignore the letters of demand, summons, warrants of execution against property and notice of removal issued against them, he said. This is not a witch hunt. The affected parties were properly served with legal papers which they chose to sit on and we are merely enforcing the law.
Majoni said the notice of removal gave them 48 hours to pay but the Messengers court extended the period to a month. We extended that the period to a month and they still failed to pay. The next thing was to take the property to recover the debt, added Majoni.
He said after the auction would come up with a statement of sale, which would show how much the auctioned property fetched. In the event that we fail to recover the full cost, we will proceed with the execution of the remaining property. If they have none left, we will issue them with summons for civil imprisonment, said Majoni.
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