Zimbabwe Assemblies Of God Africa (ZAOGA) under the leadership of Archbishop Ezekiel Guti has been hit with a $300 000 lawsuit by a local consulting engineering firm for breach of contract.
The consulting engineering firm Stratus Consulting (Pvt) Ltd was hired to provide professional engineering services for the construction of the massive Zimbabwe Ezekiel Guti University (ZEGU) campus in Bindura in Mashonaland Central.
While in the middle of the project, Stratus claims it was elbowed out in violation of the contract entered between the parties. To that end, Stratus has instructed its attorneys Sachikonye & Hlabano Legal Practitioners to sue for damages.
In summons filed at the High Court last Monday, the consulting engineering firm is claiming $300 000 with costs.
The company is also claiming collection commission calculated at the rate of ten percent. According to the plaintiff’s declaration, the parties entered an agreement for the provision of professional mechanical engineering services on May 15, 2012.
In terms of the said agreement, which still subsists, Stratus should provide the services for a fee. Construction work, according to Stratus, was stopped for eight months due to financial challenges around 2015.
When the project resumed, Stratus was dumped without proper termination of the contract.
The declaration reads:
“The plaintiff has reason to believe that, for reasons best known to the defendant, he has been unlawfully replaced in the project and that in itself is a clear breach of the agreement that the parties signed. The plaintiff wrote to the defendant on several occasions, asking them to remedy this breach, but they have failed, neglected, or refused to do so, leaving the plaintiff with no option except to approach the court for redress.”
The church is yet to respond to the claim, ahead of a hearing at the High Court.
The suit came just a fortnight after the church buried its Evangelist and Founder’s son Ezekiel Guti Junior who passed away while in ICU in South Africa on December 26.
Source: The Herald
