The City Of Harare has issued a public notice indicating that the section along Samora Machel Avenue between Leopold Takawira Street and First Street and Julius Nyerere Way between Sam Nujoma Street and Kwame Nkurumah Avenue will be temporarily closed between the 25th of June 2020 to the 28th of August 2020.

Council said the closure of the road will allow for the construction of a monument at the busy prime spot in the city.

City of Harare further said alternative routes will be recommended by use of informative signs. Council said:

“It is most important to note that during this period Leopold Takawira Street will be two – way up to Nelson Mandela Avenue from Samora Machel Avenue and a section of Kwame Nkrumah Avenue between First Street and Julius Nyerere Way will be one – way for traffic due west.”

The site of the construction is where ZANU PF elements have for a long-time been calling for the setting up of a statue of late former President Robert Mugabe.

Conscious that at 93, Robert Mugabe was to serve a full term if he won the 2018 presidential election ZANU PF officials ordered two statues that were to be erected in his honour when he dies.

The statues remained stuck in North Korea and are rumoured to have since arrived in the country.

The two giant bronze effigies were meant to be erected in Mr Mugabe’s home district of Zvimba and in the Harare at the spot that the City Of Harare is working on.

They were commissioned from a North Korean statue maker, Mansudae Art Studio, whose socialist-realist monuments are spread across the pariah state but have also become a common sight in Africa, where they offered imposing commemorations of the continent’s strongmen for a knockdown price.