Mayor for the council, Syze Simeji says the decision comes after unfruitful engagements with property owners to settle their ground rates.

"We engaged the property owners on the matter, only a few came forth to settle the ground rates that have accrued for years. So the full council has resolved to take the legal route to collect the rates," he said.

Luchenza business association chairperson, George Banda, has attributed the failure to pay the ground rates to current economic challenges that business operators are facing in the municipality.

"In Luchenza town, business has gone down and some of our members are closing businesses, we do not know on how we should settle this," he said.

Banda has on the other hand, faulted the council for lacking consultations on the matter, failure to improve social service delivery such as, cleaning the town and constructing sanitary amenities in the flea market.

"Their problem is that they do not consult us the business community to pay the rates in good time. They just make the by-laws without us," he claimed.