RABECCCA BANDA writes
@SunZambian
THE Chilenje Local Court has ordered a couple of Lusaka to return shop goods belonging to their former tenant.
Edwin Musonda, 50, of Chawama and Brenda Daka, 47, a business woman of the same area were sued by Salome Mulenga, 38, a businesswoman of Chalala for holding shop goods illegally.
Mulenga said she started renting Daka’s shop on August 1 last year and it was agreed that she would be paying K300 in two months advance.
“I started having problems with payments in January when I fell sick. I explained to Musonda that I would delay to pay because he was the one I was sending the money to. I stayed for some months without opening the shop.
“On the 10th of March, they called me for a meeting to discuss the rentals, but I refused because I had gone to the hospital for a check-up. A few weeks later I was surprised when the market master called me saying that the landlord wanted to break into the shop,” she said.
She said eventually, her landlord in the company of her husband broke into the shop without her permission and collected goods.
I called them a few days later to make a payment of K400 but they refused saying they wanted the money in full. They did not give me enough notice of three months as the law states. I want them to return my goods because they grabbed them illegally,’’ she said.
The two were appearing before senior local court magistrate Ackim Phiri.
In defence Musonda said she collected the goods because Mulenga owed her and her husband K950 in rental arrears.
And Daka said Mulenga was paying well at the beginning.
“She failed to pay for rentals for February and March. We called her asking about the money and she promised to pay. She later gave us a number of a man she claimed to be her husband and told us that he would pay.
“She was around when we went to the shop to remove the things. She witnessed us removing the locks because she was refusing to hand over the keys. We wrote down everything that we got from the shop,” she said.
The court ordered them to return the shop goods and advised them to sue for the money owed to them.
