Angelah Nothando Mlotshwa
Environment and Health Reporter
The war against Tendy Three Investment (TTI) and Bulawayo City Council (BCC) parking’s tax regime is yet but not over.
A newly registered entity calling itself Bulawayo Business Development Association has called for motorists to boycott parking at the designated Tendy Three Investments parking bays found all over the Central Business District of Bulawayo.
The boycott is set to take place from12 to 17 June in the current year.
The boycott is an effort by the advocacy body to have the parking fees lowered from US$1 per hour to the same amount albeit per day.
This comes after Tendy Three Investments was awarded a Build On Operate Transferpayment (BOOT), tender to install and maintain the City’s parking system by the City Fathers.
While the system was a welcome development by the Bulawayo public, it is the awarding of the tender that has had many spanners being thrown into the deal as it is believed there was no transparency in its awarding.
Further it is the charges that TTI appends to any motorist who parks at such bays manned by its rank marshals.
At inception, the charge was fixed at US$1 per half hour or US$2 per sixty minutes. This caused a lot of ruckus amongst the motoring public and the City Council, who are partners with TTI.
An involuntary boycott by car owners took place with many leaving their vehicles at the peripherals of the City to avoid the ‘exorbitant’ parking fees. Seeing that the public was being ripped off, the City Council together with its partner, TTI, reduced the fees to the current US$1 per hour.
Still, the motoring public believe that the fee is still too high, thus the call for the boycott.
There has been a serious tug of war between TTI and the motoring public as some vehicles are clamped for non-compliance with TTI parking rules and regulations. Some motorists have found themselves with unexplained debts as parking tickets just surface from thin air.
Such unexplained tickets have resulted in many drivers crying foul over the parking system.
A wide consultation was done by the new body Bulawayo Business Development Association as to the way forward. A boycott has been suggested so as to pressure the BCC and TTI so that consultations with the residents are conducted and determine a collective course of action.
“We want to pay $1 per day. We don’t want ghost tickets. We don’t want careless clamping. We want to be involved in decisions that affect us”, reads part of a flyer being distributed by BBDA.
A video of a car being secured with six clamps recently made rounds and raising many questions from the public.
ZIM GBC NEWS went on to establish that the reason why TTI Marshals clamped the particular vehicle with multiple clamos is because the owner would have previously managed to escape by either destroying the clamps or taking the wheel off.
For a car to be clamped, it would have parked on undesignated points or parked on top of the bay mark or has accumulated several unpaid tickets.
“We cannot continue sponsoring corrupt activities of BCC and TTI who have proven themselves to be selfish by abusing the business community and residents.”
There have been some complaints that some of the cars have outstanding debts despite not having been parked in the City bays or used in a while.
Therefore, the general public is asked to refrain from driving during the boycott and instead use public transportation or park in areas not manned by TTI.
In 2020 the Bulawayo City Council awarded the parking management system tender to TTI. The local government from then was to receive 30% of the proceeds under a six-year build, operate, and transfer agreement while TTI keeps 70%.
It is yet to be seen if the Bulawayo Motoring public will heed the call to boycott TTI parking bays come 12 June.
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