By Mary Taruvinga

A branch of the Johanne Masowe eChishanu apostolic sect has approached the High Court, with an urgent chamber application seeking an order to bar the Harare City Council from evicting it from a shrine in the high density suburb of Glen Norah.

The application follows an order by the High Court authorising the Deputy Sheriff to evict the sect. However, the apostolic sect argues the order was reached at last Thursday erroneously as its members “were tied up praying for the country.”

While the sect intended to appeal at the Supreme Court, the appeal was deemed to have lapsed after the church failed to pay the High Court Registrar costs for preparation of the record.

This resulted in an order being issued against them with eviction set for Monday June 3^rd.

“The applicants failed to pay the requested costs as their contact persons being the 2^nd and 3^rd applicants were not reachable both to their legal practitioners and anyone else as they had embarked on a three month pilgrimage that involved camping in mountains in seclusion from technology whilst praying for the nation of Zimbabwe as directed by the Holy Spirit.

“The pilgrimage journey ended in the nation of Israel and the 2^nd and 3^rd applicants only arrived in Zimbabwe on the 30^th of May 2019 as will more fully appear on their passports,” said lawyers representing the sect.

“If the respondents are not interdicted, the respondents will suffer irreparable harm and will need to seek further reliefs of the court to enforce an order in their favour in the vent the Supreme Court application succeeds.”

The applicant in the case is the church founder, Onwell Vengesayi. Also cited as applicants are, the church and one Akson Kandira, who are 1^st and 3^rd applicants respectively.

Harare City Council and the Deputy Sherriff of High Court are cited as respondents.