BY CHARLES MUSONDA
A COURT has stopped UPND cadres from barring PF-aligned bus drivers from operating from Lusaka’s Kulima Tower Bus Station.
The court has ordered that Kulima Tower was a public facility available for use by all citizens.
Over 100 drivers had been chased from bus stations in Lusaka by the UPND cadres, forcing others to seek protection from the court.
Lusaka Magistrate Alice Walusiku yesterday granted an interim injunction order restraining four minibus drivers from restricting four others from carrying out any activities at Kulima Tower Bus Station.
In an order for interim injunction, the Magistrate restrained the defendants from harassing, threatening, and interfering with the plaintiffs’ quiet enjoyment of peace pending hearing of the main matter in full.
This is in a case where four minibus drivers Felix Mumba, Ernest Chansa, David Sikapizya, and Charles Mbulo had sued fellow drivers Nicholas Banda, Charles Musonda, Friday Kafwimbi, and Steven Mwale for stopping them from entering and operating their buses at Kulima Tower Bus Station.
The plaintiffs wanted the court to allow them have access to the station again after they were blocked and restricted from entering the premises by the defendants. They also wanted damages for inconvenience and psychological trauma caused by the defendants’ actions.
The plaintiffs also wanted costs of and incidental to the court proceedings and any other relief the court may deem fit.
In his affidavit in support of ex-parte summons for interim injunction, first plaintiff Felix Mumba said yesterday that the plaintiffs plus 76 other bus operators working at Kulima Tower Bus Station were brutally chased by Banda, Musonda, Kafwimbi, and Mwale claiming that the plaintiffs belonged to a known political party.
Mr. Mumba said the defendants had restricted the plaintiffs and other drivers from operating their buses at the station and had even gone to an extent of restricting buses belonging to them and other individuals they suspect to belong to the said political party.
He said if the defendants go ahead to implement their intentions, it will not only be to the detriment of the plaintiffs but also unjustified as well as infringement on the rules of natural justice and that the plaintiffs would suffer irreparable damage.
“In the interest of justice I beseech the indulgence of this Honourable court that the defendants, their agents or whosoever be retrained from restricting the plaintiffs from carrying out any activities at Kulima Tower Bus Station and further from harassing, threatening and interfering with the plaintiffs’ quiet enjoyment of peace until final determination of this action,” Mr. Mumba said.
Inter-parte hearing of the matter comes up on September 24, 2021.
