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Municipal Reporter
parking marshals of City Parking (Pvt) Ltd will soon be able to clamp unlawfully parked vehicles on Harare’s streets with drivers charged US$57 and kombis US$80 to have them freed.Harare councillors have now passed the necessary resolution giving City Parking (Pvt) Ltd marshals authority to clamp vehicles of motorists violating parking by-laws and the city’s business committee on December 13, 2013, told the city’s public safety director to work with the chamber secretary and take necessary action to empower the marshals to clamp vehicles of offending motorists.
In its 2014 budget, the city hiked the maximum clamping and tow-away fees. The city charges US$57 for wheel clamping of small vehicles and US$80 for commuter omnibuses.
The much higher fees result when a vehicle has to be towed away, where US$423 is required. Tow-away charges stand at US$112 for light vehicles and US$132 for commuter omnibuses.
Council argues that the new US$423 penalty will deter would-be offenders from action that could lead to a tow-away thereby restoring order in the central business district.
City Parking, a subsidiary of Harare City Council, was created to run the municipality’s parking business while waiting for finalisation of the dispute between Harare and Easihold (Pvt) Limited of South Africa, who were running parking through Easipark.
City Parking will install parking meters in areas that are currently not under Easipark’s supervision. Motorists have complained that shortage of parking space is the major reason why they are violating by-laws.
Statistics released recently show that the city only has 7 000 on-street and parkade parking bays against almost 160 000 cars that enter the central business district daily.
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