Suburban
HARARE residents feel the recent arrangement for City Parking to enforce traffic and parking by-laws in the central business district might open loopholes for corruption at the municipality.
Peter Tanyanyiwa Suburban Reporter
The residents want the City of Harare’s municipal traffic police to continue enforcing traffic and parking by-laws because the municipal police are public entity of the local authority while City Parking is a private company wholly owned by council.
In an interview, Harare Residents Trust director Mr Precious Shumba said the City of Harare should have full control of City Parking and all the revenue collected from parking fees and clamping should be channelled to the local authority otherwise the recently announced arrangement might be a ploy to siphon money from council coffers to a private company.
“The City of Harare recently announced that City Parking has been empowered to clamp illegally parked vehicles in the central business district, yet the City of Harare has a traffic enforcement division. The transfer of this responsibility from the traffic enforcement department implies that the City of Harare has lost confidence in the traffic police. Or it means that another game plan not revealed to the residents is underway to siphon funds from the City of Harare coffers to a private company where two representatives of a political party sit on the City Parking board. By implication, this means that City of Harare decision makers are now using City Parking to fundraise for a political party,” said Mr Shumba.
He said the lack of transparency and accountability shown by the City of Harare demonstrates that governance principles publicly announced by Mayor Jacob Mafume and his council were merely a stage managing exercise.
Mr Shumba said currently, only 20 percent of the City Parking revenue is being channelled to the City of Harare as remittances while the bulk of the money up to 80 percent is retained by City Parking.
“The City of Harare is the only shareholder in City Parking. Why then is the shareholder getting a tiny proportion of revenues while the bulk of the funds are retained by this company. Who is fooling who?”
The Harare Residents Trust requests the Auditor General’s Office to target City Parking and other council strategic business units for thorough auditing. We have strong reasons to believe that corruption and manipulation of revenues are prevalent at City Parking and other council’s strategic business units. Imagine the corporate incest taking place where the general manager of City Parking has been seconded as a board member to the Harare Quarry, another company supposedly wholly owned by the City of Harare but whose financial transactions are opaque.
“The reality is that they are conniving to loot public funds using the strategic business units where they are busy appointing known partisan lawyers as board members.
“The idea is to have unhindered access to these companies’ financial resources. A similar situation has happened at Rufaro Marketing.
One does not need to be learned to observe that the City of Harare has become highly partisan, unprofessional and a place for the plundering of council resources to achieve political partisan objectives. We urge the City of Harare to be guided by the value of citizen participation in their decision making,” said Mr Shumba.
Two weeks ago when council the decision to mandate City Parking to enforce parking and traffic by-laws it sparked debate among residents who questioned the rationale behind the move.
The announcement on enforcement of parking and traffic by-laws followed another revelation that City Parking was now responsible for the renovations of the council-owned Rufaro Stadium.
“The facility regarded as the traditional home of local soccer, has been banned from hosting both local and international soccer matches until the stadium is upgraded to required standards.
Last year council pulled out of an agreement with Sakunda Holdings to renovate Rufaro.
City Parking has already started work at Rufaro Stadium with workers working on the playing turf while some walls of the dressing rooms have been demolished in preparation for extensions.
These two developments have sparked debate among ratepayers who are wondering how a parking company has suddenly assumed these crucial duties.
Previously City Parking was responsible for collecting parking fees in the central business district and its surroundings while the enforcement of parking and traffic by-laws was the mandate of the traffic municipal police.
And that is what has gotten residents to explore the justification of such a move.
