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Prosper Dembedza-Herald Correspondent
A former City of Harare chief building inspector who is accused of unprocedurally approving a building plan for George Katsimberis for a showroom which was later demolished has appeared in court.
Roy Nyabvure (64) was facing criminal abuse of duty charges when he appeared before Harare magistrate Mr Taurai Manwere.
Prosecutor Mr Lancelotte Mutsokoti opposed bail.
Mr Mutsokoti said he would call the investigating officer Mr Evans Bota to the witness stand tomorrow to give the court reasons why Nyabvure is not a proper candidate for bail.
The court heard that on February 23, 2017 and in the course and scope of his duties as chief building inspector, the accused allegedly unprocedurally approved a building plan for stand number Number 19559 Harare
Township otherwise known as 19559 Corner Teviotdale and Whitwell Road which had been submitted directly to him at Cleveland House by George Katsimbires, who was a constructing partner at one of Pokugara Properties (Pvt) Ltd sites.
This was contrary to City of Harare procedures which required that plans be submitted through respective district offices.
It is the State’s case that Katsimbires went on to present the approved plan to Pokugara Properties, misrepresenting that it had been duly approved. Acting on this misrepresentation, Pokugara Properties went on to sanction the building of a house on the said stand.
It is alleged that after the completion of the building, Pokugara Properties was served with a notice of demolition from City of Harare citing that the building had to be demolished because it was erected without an approved and had been built with material not approved by the city.
The notice, dated July 26, 2018 demanded that the structure be demolished by August 30, 2018 and further notified them that financial penalties would be meted against the company for its wrongful actions.
The company complied with the directive of the city, and demolished the structure.
The court heard that the demolition occasioned serious reputational and administrative prejudice to the company prompting them to embark on an investigation to establish the circumstances surrounding the approval of the plan with a view to ascertain if the plan had indeed been approved by City of Harare.
In pursuit of this objective, they wrote to the City of Harare enquiring the status of the plan in contention. They also specifically enquired on the standard procedure on plan approval and also highlighting that a certain city official had misrepresented that the plans had properly been approved after complying with the standard circulation procedure.
It is the State’s case that on June 26, 2019, the City of Harare responded in writing to the company’s request indicating that the procedure of plan circulation was not followed as the approval was done before the circulation of the plan.
The accused was fingered as the culprit behind the unprocedural processing of the plan.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter