Moto Republik has maintained an adamant position in which they have vowed to fight the Harare City Council’s move to demolish their alleged illegally structured offices.
This follows events on Thursday which saw municipal officers coming with equipment to raze down all the structures at the Moto Republik premises that were built using shipping containers amidst claims that this was against council by-laws.
Addressing members of the press earlier on Friday, Comrade Fatso, one of the founders of the creative hub, said they will not fold their hands and watch council stand in the way of innovation.
“They had no court order to take down the structure and you can’t just wake up and say I want to demolish this building. Our internal motto is that “By Ginya”, we won’t stop fighting this and be rest assured that Moto Republik is here to stay,” he said.
“Council has misplaced priorities because instead of focusing on channelling resources towards fixing pot-holes, they are here to raze apart a creative space which is helping in providing a platform where young people can bring their innovations to reality.
“Harare City has plans of becoming a world class city, and surely an artistic structure like this should be aiding in the achievement of this .
“By destroying it, they are actually working against their own vision,” he added.
He went on to parade approved Harare City Council plans of the structure and expressed dismay at the decision by the city fathers to demolish the building regardless of the fact that all due council procedures had been followed in erecting it.
“These to my left here are approved city council plans that passed through every single department of the municipal offices and on top of that we have paid various regularization fees for the structures. Only now that’s when they want to argue that we can’t have a shipping container structure in the CBD when this is not even part of the CBD,” he said.
He called on government to get its priorities in place and focus on other issues instead of hindering development that is already in place.
“We are asking the Minister of Local government, Public works and National Housing, Saviour Kasukuwere on top of all this to stop the demolition of Moto Republik and focus on priorities such as service delivery.
“We are going to petition the city council against all this and also legal action is in place as today in the afternoon we are actually meeting up with our lawyers,” revealed Fatso.
In the meantime, the minister has responded to the #SaveMotoRepublik campaign
Will engage the City Mayor @BGManyenyeni and I will appeal to him to #SaveMotoRepublik as it a center that empowers young people
— Hon S Kasukuwere (@Hon_Kasukuwere) March 10, 2017
