admin
Prosper Dembedza Herald Correspondent
Former City of Harare chief building inspector Roy Nyabvure, who is facing criminal abuse of duty charges, will spend the weekend behind bars after his bail ruling was deferred to November 16.
Nyabvure (64) unprocedurally signed a building plan for George Katsimberis which was used to build a showroom that was later demolished by the City of Harare.
In opposing bail, the State led by Mr Lancelotte Mutsokoti called its witness the investigating officer detective Evans Bota who told the court that Nyabvure was not a proper candidate for bail since he is a flight risk.
The detective also submitted that Nyabvure supplied them two fake addresses.
He further submitted to the court that he had already initiated a process to involve media publication of the accused as a wanted person.
However, Nyabvure’s lawyer told the court that his client was a man of fixed abode and that the reason he was not surrendering to the police was because he was a witness in another similar matter.
Allegations are that on February 23, 2017 and in the course and scope of his duties as chief building Inspector, Nyabvure unprocedurally approved a building plan for stand number 19559 Harare Township otherwise known as 19559 Cnr Teviotdale and Whitwell Road which had been submitted directly to him at Cleveland House by George Katsimberis, who was a constructing partner at one of Pokugara Properties (Pvt) Ltd sites.
The State alleges this was contrary to City of Harare procedure which required that plans be submitted through respective district offices.
It is alleged Katsimberis 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 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 plan and had been built with material not approved by City of Harare.
The State alleges that the notice dated 26 July 2018 demanded that the structure be demolished by the 30 August 2018 and further notified them that financial penalties would be meted against the company for its alleged wrongful actions.
The company complied with the directive of the city, and demolished the structure. 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 allegedly wrote to the City of Harare enquiring the status of the plan in contention.
They allegedly 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 alleged that on June 26, 2019, 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.
On July 8, 2019, City of Harare wrote to Pokugara Properties reiterating that the plan was unprocedurally approved, circumventing the standard procedures and that the plan was null and void as it was none-existent in their system.
The accused was fingered as the culprit behind the unprocedural processing of the plan.
On 23 August 2022, the matter was reported to the police and on 28 September 2022, a procedural statement was obtained from City of Harare which confirmed that the accused had circumvented the standard operating procedure for the approval of building plans by failing to follow the established procedure in plan approval.
Online Reporter