Dismiss M’membe’s submission on Post liquidation, court told

Wed, 17 Jan 2018 12:53:59 +0000

By CHINTU MALAMBO

FIVE former employees of The Post Newspaper (in liquidation) have requested the Lusaka High Court to throw out a submission in which former Post Newspaper Editor-in-Chief, Fred M’membe, was seeking an order to set aside the consent judgement that declared the company bankrupt.

This was after Mr M’membe sued the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) and the five former employees – Abel Mboozi, Roy Habaalu, Andrew Chiwenda, Mweembalubi Mweene and Bonaventure Bwalya – who commenced an action requesting the court to wind up the company.

In his statement of claim, Mr M’membe alleged that he was not given an opportunity to sign the consent order as a party to the proceedings, adding that High Court Judge Sunday   Nkonde went ahead to sign the consent judgement delivered on January 10, 2018 declaring the Post insolvent without having statutory inter-parte return hearing for the appointment of a provisional liquidator.

He also argued that the order which appointed the provisional liquidator, Mr Lewis Mosho, did not give him the right in any way to evade his and the Post Newspaper’s right to defend the winding up proceedings in their own behalf.

Mr M’membe asked the court to set aside the consent order for being illegal and obtained by fraud.

But one of the former employees, Mr Bonaventure Bwalya, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, argued that Mr M’membe’s claims should be thrown out on a point of law.

He argued that Mr M’membe did not have sufficient interest in the winding up of the Post Newspaper as he was aware of the winding up proceedings but did not show interest to join the proceedings.

“Mr M’membe was aware of the winding up proceedings of the Post from the time of presentation of the petition for winding up under cause number 2016/HPC/0518 but did not at any time challenge the winding up proceedings.

“He was at liberty to contest the winding up proceedings but he deliberately omitted to join throughout the process which took one year,” Mr Bwalya argued.

Mr Bwalya also argued that Mr M’membe had failed to meet the requirements which ought to be satisfied by a third party to challenge the consent judgement.