FORMER Zanu PF Chegutu West lawmaker, Dexter Nduna has accused City Parking of failing to utilise remittances collected over the past decade for the intended purpose of maintaining and upgrading Harare’s roads.
In an interview with NewsDay, Nduna threatened court action against City Parking to ensure that the company contributes to the improvement of road conditions in the city.
“We want to take City Park to court in order to ensure that they can produce records to show that they have utilised 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 said.
“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 said 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 utilised to collect those monies and channelled accordingly in line with Roads Act which directs that there is need for routine periodic maintenance of the roads from there the money is collected,” he said.
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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 revealed that a formal agreement with City Parking was only signed in 2022, despite the company having started operations around 2012.
Up to that point, the Ministry of Local Government said City Parking was utilising public assets without any record of payment.
The company’s managing director Simon Muzviyo, once said City Parking was a private company not subject to public scrutiny under Public Finance Management Act.
Legislators have questioned why the City of Harare created a private company that collects revenue from motorists.