Source: Transporter’s suit against Zimra struck off | The Herald
Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter
A bid by a local transporter to compel the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) to release a haulage truck impounded for carrying a contraband of marijuana and bales of clothes in a false bottom compartment under a legal consignment of fertiliser, failed after the High Court struck the matter off the roll.
However, while Zimra won the point that it had not been given proper notice so the suit was a nullity, the transporter did still have the right to sue since it was within a deadline that only started when Zimra announced it was not releasing the truck, not when Zimra actually impounded the truck.
The haulage truck belonging to Payloads Private Limited was carrying bags of fertiliser to Zambia from Mozambique when it was intercepted at Forbes Border Post in Mutare by Zimra officials last year.
The fertiliser consignment was declared and all the necessary legal steps taken before the cargo was cleared.
However, when Zimra officials searched the truck, they discovered that apart from cleared fertiliser, the truck was also carrying 36 bags of marijuana and three bales of second-hand clothes, both prohibited imports and neither of which had been declared.
The contraband was hidden under a false bottom compartment in a bid to deceive police, highway inspection and customs officials. So Zimra placed the truck and its trailer under seizure.
In a bid to reclaim its truck, Payloads approached the High Court in October this year suing Zimra over seizure of its truck.
But Zimra opposed the suit raising two special pleas revolving around the timing that Payloads gave of the notice for intention to sue, one of the pleas being successful and the other not.
Zimra successfully argued that under the Customs and Excise Act the notice was outside the time frame and so was fatally defective. In terms of the law, no civil proceedings can be instituted against the State, the Commissioner or an officer under the Act, nor under any other law relating to customs and excise, until 60 days after notice has been given in terms of the State Liabilities Act.
It was on this basis that Justice David Mangota upheld Zimra’s special plea relating to the notice of intention to sue and struck the matter off the roll. The judge agreed that where the applicant sues any of the listed persons without having given him notice for a period of 60 days, the suit is non-event.
However, the judge threw out Zimra’s plea that Payload had submitted the notice of suit after the period of prescription, the period given for someone to sue Zimra. Essentially, the judge ruled the clock started after Zimra said it was keeping the truck, not when the truck was first impounded.
The court noted that Zimra decision against releasing Payloads truck was communicated on November 29 last year, several months after the expiry of the three months that the law gave an aggrieved entity to sue.
In this case, the court agreed with Payloads legal counsel that the transporter approached the court after realising that its intention to exhaust internal remedies within the three-months period stipulated in the Act yielded no positive result.
The transport company could not have sued under the cited law before Zimra had communicated to it that its truck would not be released to it.
Payloads became aware of Zimra’s decision on November 29 and sued the authority on July 25 this year within the prescriptive period of eight months also provided under another section of the law.
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