Kereke’s Zimra appeal struck off the roll

via Kereke’s Zimra appeal struck off the roll. NEWSDAY 20 June 2014

THE Supreme Court yesterday struck off an appeal filed by Bikita West MP Munyaradzi Kereke, where he was seeking annulment of a High Court order allowing the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) to garnish his hospital’s bank accounts to recover $4 million in tax arrears.

SENIOR COURT REPORTER

The bench, comprising Deputy Chief Justice Luke Malaba sitting with Justices Paddington Garwe and Susan Mavangira, unanimously agreed that Kereke’s appeal was defective and did not comply with the Supreme Court’s rules.

“We note that it has been stated in numerous cases that appeals must strictly comply with rule number 29 of the Supreme Court Rules and failure to do so would render the notice of appeal fatally defective . . . in this case the verbosity and the length of the appeal renders the notice fatally defective and cannot be amended now . . .,” the court said.

The High Court recently granted Zimra a garnish order to recover $4 million from Rock Foundation Medical Centre (RMC)’s bank account and at the time of the appeal, the taxman had recovered $2,3 million. Kereke owns the private hospital which, according to the State, had not been remitting its tax dues to Zimra for the past three years.

Prior to the court’s ruling, Kereke’s lawyer Advocate Lewis Uriri had submitted that a notice of appeal was capable of being amended and that he had instructions to file notice of the amendment of the grounds of appeal, but his application was dismissed.

This was after Zimra lawyer Advocate Thembinkosi Magwaliba complained that Kereke’s appeal was “loaded with all sorts of irregularities and that such fatally defective notice should not be accepted by the court”.

In his appeal, Kereke had said High Court judge Justice Joseph Mafurise erred in dismissing his application to stop Zimra from garnishing, the RMC bank account over tax liabilities.

According to court papers, the garnishee orders have since been amended to reflect the real outstanding balance.