Chronicle Editor
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has refuted claims that they implemented paid parking on parking bays littered with potholes, arguing that they are the only city in the country to have ensured that all marked bays were pothole-free.
The assertion by BCC has, however, been met with brickbats by motorists who say the city council is not being honest.
The motorists are saying the sentiments are a stark contrast to the images circulating on social media vividly showing some parking bays littered with potholes, prompting them to question the sincerity of BCC and calling on the local authority to do the right thing.
Motorists described the statement by Tendy Three Investments (TTI), the city parking firm and BCC as a media gimmick saying they were not being honest regarding the state of affairs of the marked bays.
“Just take a drive to the area along Fife Street just after 5th Avenue and you will see what we are talking about. Marked parking bays littered with potholes are all over the city and sometimes you wonder who they think will park in a pothole. Council is just milking us dry without rehabilitating their roads,” said Mr Mthabisi Dliwayo.
Another motorist said if BCC was not the one that marked the parking bays with potholes they should investigate and find out who did that.
“We are made to pay for parking on marked bays that have potholes. We have no choice because if you refuse they will clamp you car. But then what is the point of saying they did not put paid parking on bays with potholes? If they did not, then who did because it’s all over,” said another motorist Ms Nobuhle Mpofu.
BCC entered into a parking management partnership with TTI in 2021, which saw TTI implementing the parking management system in the city in February 2022.
According to their contract, BCC was supposed to avail 7 200 marked and rehabilitated bays in the Central Business District.
However, according to the latest council report the parking management project has 5 786 parking bays out of the planned minimum of 7 200 tolling bays.
To date, from the 5 786 bays prepared 506 were disabled, taxi, reserved and cycle bays and the difference of 5 280 bays has been used as tolling bays.
“Council’s efforts to attend to the bays preparation was hampered by huge market costs and huge capital outlays required for the project area carriageway and parking bays. The department had, over the last two months, continued rolling out bays in the project area where works on the road carriageway had been attended to,” reads the report.
However, speaking during an operational update, officials from TTI and BCC, the parking management system’s project manager, Engineer Howard Sibanda claimed that the local authority had come up with a deliberate policy where they do not implement paid parking in bays that have potholes.
He refuted claims that they were paid parking bays with potholes.
“In Bulawayo, we handled the issue of parking differently from all other cities and towns in Zimbabwe. We made it law that wherever parking bays or roads still have potholes, we do not put paid parking.
“If you notice, we have not started implementing paid parking on bays that have not been fixed of potholes. What we are just doing is enforcing traffic by-laws, clamping motorists whenever they break the traffic regulations,” said Eng Ndlovu.
Commenting on the remarks by Eng Sibanda, Bulawayo United Residents Association chairperson, Mr Winos Dube said while they appreciated the impact the parking system has had on the city in terms of bringing sanity, there was a need to approach the issue of parking bays with potholes more professionally.
“It is no secret that there are a number of paid parking bays in the CBD that have portholes, however, in our understanding, we were told that monies collected from parking bays will be ring-fenced and used to rehabilitate the roads and the parking bays but it seems that is not happening at all.
“We call on the local authority to show us that the money they are getting monthly is used to rehabilitate these roads and parking bays. Yes, the parking system has brought sanity, in terms of cleanliness and the reduction of haphazard businesses operating from cars but let’s see this success also transmitting to the roads and parking bays,” said Mr Dube.
Online Reporter