By Esther Chisola
A former magistrate has taken the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company to court demanding K5 million for breach of contract.
Chama Mutambalilo who has cited the water utility company as a respondent also wants a declaration that the defendant breached the water supply contract by sending their servants to remove the water meter from his property, uprooting pipes and disconnecting water supply unilaterally and without giving written notice.
Mutambalilo is also seeking an order for the defendant to pay damages for breach of the water supply contract made between the two parties.
The plaintiff further wants an order that removing the water meter and uprooting pipes by the water company unilaterally without notice was illegal and in fact defamed him.
According to a statement of claim filed in the Lusaka High Court, Mutambailo stated that on November 2, 2011, he engaged Smiley Drilling Limited to drill a borehole and the defendant’s servants convinced him that water from the borehole was unsafe for drinking and cooking purposes because Lusaka as a city was built on a rock and some waste ended up in people’s boreholes and thus paid for water supplying contact agreement with the defendant.
“The defendant gave a quotation No 121713 for K5,000 which they called capital contribution for the defendant in order to connect the plaintiff’s property so that he could have access to clean chlorine drinking water coming from the Kafue river,” he stated.
“The plaintiff made the payments in instalments and on November 12, 2012 the plaintiff completed the payment of K5,000 capital contribution and water supply was connected to the plaintiffs Kamwala South property no 26317/917.”
He submitted that he mainly used the borehole water for watering his surrounding garden, trees, flowers, lawns and the defendants supplied water for drinking and cooking.
“The plaintiff maintained his account with the defendant well and he never owed the defendant any money and in fact the defendant owed him money in over paid bills at the time of defendants’ ill action,” he stated.
He stated that he was shocked on December 29, 2022 around 10:40 hours when one of his tenants called him that servants of the defendant were at Kamwala South property to disconnect water supply.
“That the plaintiff was in fact owed money by the defendant as his account 05043371 was showing – k12.07 as at November 30, 2022. The plaintiff tried to reason with the defendants servants who shouted and used disrespectful language in full view of community, neighbours, onlookers and the defendant’s servants stated that they were going to even uproot the pipe supplying water outside the plaintiff’s property and they in fact uprooted the pipes,” he stated.
“The actions of the defendant caused reputation damage to the plaintiff who is an advocate, a former Resident Magistrate, a post graduate student with University of Zambia, a PHD constitutional law student and landlord in the eyes of his tenants and onlookers from his community.’
The plaintiff submitted that he wrote a demand letter through his lawyers for reconnecting of water supply and compensation but the defendant refused or rejected to re-connect and restore water supply.
“The defendant instead sent a draft contract which had oppressive terms such as installation of water meter on the plaintiffs’ borehole, billing of the borehole and setting a minimum water consumption which never existed when the plaintiff first entered the supply agreement in the year 2012,” said Mutambalilo. “The plaintiff maintains that he was never given any notification of the defendants ill intended actions as all notifications were sent on his mobile phone. Neither stated anywhere that he will ever get his capital contribution paid in the year 2012 amounting to K5,000 after the defendant unilaterally took away the water meter and dug out pipes connecting the plaintiffs’ property to the water supply.”
