BCC finally awards parking management system tender

THE Bulawayo City Council has finally awarded the contentious parking management system tender which has taken over 10 years since it was first mooted.

Early this year the local authority re-advertised the tender after a decade of a back and forth toil in finalising it, after the local authority was dragged to court by one of the initial bidding companies Megalithic that accused the local authority of irregularly cancelling the tender when the company had clearly won it.

After the courts finally allowed council to go ahead with the tender, the Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube in January flighted an advertisement in the local media calling for expressions of interest from companies for the designing and installation of the parking management system.

According to Mr Dube the tender has been awarded to Trendy Three Investments with the two parties now working on the final contract after which the company will then be expected to move on site to start installing the system.

"Parking management has been awarded to the contractor; which is Trendy Three Investments Private Limited, we are now working on the actual contract. After the awarding of the tender other bidders were given two weeks to object and fortunately there was no objection. I am sure the contractor will be on site as soon as the contract is signed," said Mr Dube.

Ten companies had been shortlisted in the tender these being; Telone, City Parking, Tax GI Global, GKB Designs and Associates, Dande Mutande, UBIO, School of Java, Lauvax Trading Private Limited trading as ProPark, Grey Africa and Trendy Three Investments.

The initial shambolic bidding process brought the city's tendering system under scrutiny, with accusations of corruption among councillors and directors flying around. First, Easipark, the South African company that was favourite to clinch the parking deal, was disqualified on allegations of attempting to bribe members of the procurement board to swing the bid in its favour.

The company was readmitted and the tendering process re-done after consultations among stakeholders. Easipark was disqualified again, after it failed to attend a compulsory tender briefing meeting, which then saw Megalithic being awarded the tender. Councillors then accused former Deputy Mayor, Amen Mpofu, of championing the Easipark cause.

At one point then ward six councillor, who is now Makokoba Member of Parliament, Alderman James Sithole filed a motion where he noted that the local authority should re-tender the project to help enhance revenue collection and service delivery.

In his motion, Ald Sithole noted that if the system is put in place, council would go a long way in addressing the problem of traffic congestion which the city was currently experiencing.