BULAWAYO – Vice President Constantino Chiwenga on Friday denounced Bulawayo’s paid parking system which his own government approved.
Tendy Three International (TTI), a South African company, was awarded the contract to run the city’s parking system for six years in a build, operate and transfer arrangement.
Chiwenga, campaigning in Bulawayo on Friday ahead of the March 26 by-elections, said a local company should have been picked.
The new parking system was implemented last month but it has proved a disaster so far, with motorists abandoning parking in the CBD where TTI has designated parking bays and installed its equipment.
Bulawayo residents complain that the US$1 for 30 minutes; US$2 for an hour or US$16 per day parking charges are too high.
Chiwenga said: “Our good people always pay to secure parking bays for the vehicles in the CBD. The irony here is that a foreign owned company has been entrusted to collect revenue from parking bays, clearly there is no guarantee that the revenue collected is ploughed back to improve the lives of our people.
“Our position is that such tenders should be awarded to local people in order to empower them and develop a collective sense of ownership and responsibility to run such business.”
Chiwenga accused Bulawayo councillors of not being “people centric.”
The US$2.2 million project was approved by cabinet, it is thought in Chiwenga’s presence, and was announced by information minister Monica Mutsvangwa.
When complete, Mutsvangwa said 7,200 parking bays would be designated with 450 jobs created.
