By A Correspondent| Former Zanu PF Chegutu West lawmaker Dexter Nduna has criticized the Jacob Mafume-led City of Harare for not using the remittances collected by its parking arm, City Parking, over the past decade to maintain and upgrade Harare roads.
Nduna has threatened legal action against City Parking to compel the company to contribute to the improvement of the city’s road conditions.
“We want to take City Park to court in order to ensure that they can produce records to show that they have utilized the remittances or the payments of 10 years for the intended purpose of routine and periodic maintenance of roads from where they are collecting the fees,” Nduna stated. “We hope to make business aligned with the ethos and values of conducting such business in the most effective way which is supposed to be according to the statutes.”
He emphasized that the funds collected by City Parking should have been allocated for the rehabilitation, reconstruction, and maintenance of roads, as stipulated by the Roads Act.
“So we need to dwell on the issue of parking fees so that we show them that going forward the government can wrestle away parking fees from City Parking, so that any company can be utilized to collect those monies and channeled accordingly in line with the Roads Act which directs that there is need for routine periodic maintenance of the roads from where the money is collected,” he added.
A Commission of Inquiry into Harare’s operations revealed that City Parking operated for about a decade under a verbal agreement. The Ministry of Local Government disclosed that a formal agreement with City Parking was only signed in 2022, despite the company having started operations around 2012. Until then, the Ministry said City Parking was using public assets without any record of payment.
City Parking’s managing director, Simon Muzviyo, has previously claimed that City Parking is a private company not subject to public scrutiny under the Public Finance Management Act.
Legislators have questioned why the City of Harare created a private company to collect revenue from motorists.
-Newsday