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The Harare Residents’ Trust (HRT) has followed the debate on the operations of City Parking and the Harare Municipal Traffic Enforcement Police, both entities under the City of Harare. The organisation averred that the City of Harare has been largely dishonest about the financial relationship that exists between the Traffic Enforcement Police and the City Parking with evidence suggesting that the Harare Municipal Traffic Enforcement Police has dismally failed to sustain itself despite making hundreds of arrests of traffic offenders. Consequently, the traffic enforcement department has been getting money to pay its staff and operations from funds diverted from performing council departments.
City Parking has since around 20 February 2023 been allowed to clamp illegally parked vehicles in the central business district. Motorists are being fined US$132 for parking without paying parking fees or exceeding paid for time. The cost of US$1 per hour and the punitive fine of US$132 have no relationship and do not make economic sense. There are several options available to City Parking and the City of Harare.
In a statement, Mr. Precious Shumba, the HRT Director said the key question that should be bothering policymakers and bureaucrats in the City of Harare is the operations of the Harare Municipal Traffic Enforcement.
“How much revenue has this department collected in the past five years given their record of clamping motorists illegally parked and blocking traffic movement in places like the central business district and at Mbare Musika and Mupedzanhamo. It would be interesting to know where and what all their revenues have gone to. Several reports abound of traffic enforcement municipal officers doing mikando of US$500 per week and a majority of them now have completely built houses and nice vehicles, yet their department is reportedly unable to sustain its operations resulting in the diversion of funds from other priority services delivery areas to pay the traffic enforcement officers and their administrative requirements.
“Their salaries are in the region of US$150 per month. An investigation into the full operations of the whole traffic enforcement department under the Chamber Secretary’s Office will help resolve this puzzle. Based on these revelations, the HRT posits that the reason that the Harare Municipal Traffic Enforcement officials and their other handlers among councillors and council management want the City Parking to be stopped from clamping and collecting fines is because they realise that their personal revenue sources are being cut, thus their vehement fight back for control of the clamping functions. Clamping is only one of 19 other traffic enforcement functions that the Harare Municipal Traffic Enforcement Police may do but they are not doing their work,” Mr. Shumba said.
The City Parking business is one of several strategic business units established by the City of Harare years back in order to try to professionalise parts of service delivery away from the partisan politics that had dogged the council business for a long time. Other businesses like Harare Quarry, Mabvazuva, the cattle farms, and meats which formed part of the Harare Sunshine Holdings have not been profitable ventures because of political interferences by politicians, the lack of accountability, transparency, and cartel-driven corruption. Instead of sustaining themselves, they have been feeding off the ratepayers’ funds without any benefits accruing to the residents who should be the ultimate beneficiaries. Therefore, the best way to enhance service delivery is to strengthen the governance of successful ventures so that they generate more revenues for the city while removing the burden on ratepayers.
Key Recommendations
1. Make City Parking the main enforcer of the parking business on behalf of the City of Harare.
2. Launch a full-scale investigation into the operations of the Harare Municipal Traffic Enforcement Police to establish their operations, administrations, revenue collections, and unexplained wealth by officers in this department just for 12 months going back in order to have a sample of the rot in this department.
3. The monthly dividend from City Parking to the City of Harare should be increased from the current 23 percent to 35 percent to cater for the maintenance and upgrading of road and parking infrastructure in the central business district.
4. Ring fence the revenues disbursed to the City of Harare by City Parking to ensure that all the money is used for the purposes for which the revenues have been collected, especially on road maintenance and repairs and road markings in the central business district.
5. Expand the geographical area of coverage within the central business district under the control and authority of City Parking in order to include sections of roads downtown up to the Post Office along Charter Road that are not fully covered by the City Parking venture.
6. End the reign of political party activists running portions of streets and give all these areas to City Parking to administer the parking business.
7. All government departments whose workers and government-issued vehicles park along the streets of Harare should remit the equivalent amount of money for using the council parking spaces either monthly or quarterly. Government workers receive incentives for their vehicles including fuel and therefore should be made to account for using the parking spaces available to them. All parking spaces belong to the City of Harare.
8. Motorists who delay payment of their parking fees should be given a maximum of three hours to pay their outstanding parking fees covering to the point at which they want to leave their parking space. There is no justification for a huge fine of US$132 for delayed payment of US$1.
9. Only wrongly parked vehicles and those blocking traffic during and after peak hours should be clamped.
10. City Parking should introduce a two-shift service ending at 8 pm from Monday to Saturday. This is designed to increase revenues and also to control congestion in the central business district. Currently, City Parking ends its single shift at 4 pm during weekdays and 1 pm on Saturdays. When the parking marshals leave their workstations, congestion, and chaos begin. The Harare Municipal Traffic Enforcement Police have really been a menace instead of reining in illegal taxis and commuter omnibuses that violate traffic regulations, block parking spaces, and drive against the flow of traffic.
11. The functions of the City Parking Board and the City of Harare bureaucracy need to be reevaluated so that there is very little contestation for power and control of the city parking business.
