Motorist sues BCC and TTI, gets paid ZW$80 000

THE Bulawayo City Council has agreed to pay ZW$80 000 to a motorist who recently sued the local authority and its vehicle parking partner Tendy Three Investment (TTI) after he was issued with a traffic ticket despite him possessing a valid pre-paid parking disc.

The amount was for wasted costs. According to a council report, a Bulawayo motorist, Mr James Nerutanga had to take legal action on the two parties after he was issued with a traffic ticket despite him having a valid pre-paid parking disc. Both the local authority and TTI did not oppose the application as they "did not have a valid defence".

"Members would recall that council introduced a Parking Management System in February 2022. Council was served with a court application by the motorist (Mr James Nerutanga) after he was issued with a traffic ticket even though he was in possession of a valid pre-paid parking disc. We decided not to oppose the matter because we did not have a valid defence for our position. However, the motorist had already incurred costs as a result of the challenge that arose during the transition period," reads the report.

BCC and TTI resolved to pay ZW$80 000 in wasted costs noting that this was a fair amount to avoid further litigation.

"The challenge has since been ironed out and authority is hereby sought to pay the wasted costs in the sum of ZW$80 000. This was a negotiated settlement which is reasonable in our own view as compared to pursuing the matter," reads the report.

Meanwhile, an additional 1  028 parking bays have since been availed by the BCC engineering department in addition to the initial 700, as the company continues to expand parking management in the city.

"TTI will be numbering the parking bays, doing geographic information system (GIS) mapping of the bays and putting sensors on the ground on these bays as from Monday the 6th of June. Seventy parking marshals have been recruited and trained for this additional phase expected to be rolled out within two weeks. Over and above the 1 028 parking bays, engineering services is currently busy with fixing and painting an extra 1 000 bays which are anticipated to be ready towards the end of June. This will see us cover an additional 1 000 bays in the course of July again," said BCC corporate communications manager Mrs Nesisa Mpofu.

On the installation of other equipment such as the Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV), the council spokesperson said there were modalities to be followed which there were still busy with.

"The project plan had slated the CCTV rollout out in the second year of the project. Architectural layout designs for the CCTV are underway and we are busy with necessary compliance requirements from relevant authorities with the hope that we stay within the planned timelines of going live with CCTV on the second year of the project," she said.

BCC and TTI entered into a partnership last year that would see the latter rolling out the parking management system throughout the Central Business District. However, this was met with resistance in the city by both motorists and residents who argued that the amount that was being demanded by the South African-based company was steep. The two were accused of not consulting, resulting in most motorists boycotting bays that have the system installed.

This saw the local authority getting rid of what they termed prime parking bays where motorists were expected to pay US$1 for 30 minutes. Now motorists are required to pay US$1 for an hour or the local currency equivalent.