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Abel Zhakata
Senior Reporter
MUTARE City Council is battling to contain corruption among its parking marshals in the Central Business District and will soon install a high tech smart parking system to stop the leakages.
Acting Town Clerk, Mr Blessing Chafesuka revealed this week that the local authority is handling several corruption complaints filed by motorists against its employees.
“A lot of corruption is going on with our parking system and we have received a lot of complaints. Most of the reported cases did not go anywhere due to lack of evidence, but it is not a secret that there is corruption and we want to deal with it once and for all.
“Council is losing a lot of revenue through these leakages. There are people who are printing fake parking discs and I have personally come across a counterfeit one.
“We also have some of our officers who are taking bribes from motorists who would have flouted parking regulations. Instead of these funds getting into council coffers, they end up in the pockets of individuals.
“We have a team investigating the cases. We will be flighting a tender soon as we seek to introduce smart parking systems that are being used in other jurisdictions. This will include the installation of CCTVs in the CBD.
“I am sure this will help us deal with the problem once and for all,” said Mr Chafesuka.
According to the tender specifications, Mutare City Council is inviting qualified and experienced firms to indicate their interest for the implementation of a Smart City Parking system.
Interested partners must be in possession of an ICT-based parking system that is well developed, tested and has been successfully used for at least the past five years in an urban set-up.
Among other things, the parking system must be able to demarcate city parking bays into management zones, number parking bays for each zone, classify bays into high and low activity, mark bays reserved or pre-booked, mark free parking bays and mark bays for heavy duty vehicles.
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