US$27m needed to modernise Bulawayo CBD roads

THE Bulawayo City Council says it needs about US$27 million to completely modernise the city centre road network and ensure the establishment of efficient parking infrastructure.

While some stakeholders have argued that the US$1 per hour parking fee charged by parking contractor, Tendy Three Investments (TTI), is too high and have called for its reduction, the council has said that raising adequate funds for sprucing up the city centre roads would be adversely affected.





The introduction of a smart parking system is part of the Bulawayo City Council's drive to modernise the city in line with Government development targets towards Vision 2030.

Parking fees are charged at US$1 or the local currency equivalent at the prevailing bank rate for an hour and recently TTI introduced new monthly packages, mainly for companies operating from the city centre.

The Bulawayo Business Development Association (BBDA) has been at the forefront of mobilising motorists to boycott the TTI parking bays but to no avail.

On Monday TTI organised a consultative meeting over the subject during which candid engagements were held with stakeholders. During the meeting, the city's projects manager, Mr Vusisizwe Sibanda, said slashing parking fees will lead to stagnation of development in the city.

"You go to any city these are the amounts they are charging. So, what is different with Bulawayo? Right now, we need about US$27 million to completely modernise the city centre road network and to have our systems working effectively," he said.

"Reducing what we are charging now will see us taking 15 years to raise the amount we are talking about and surely, we can't lag behind as a city for that long when other cities are progressing."

Delegates who attended the consultative meeting generally agreed on hourly parking fees but urged TTI to relook into its package for businesses located in the city centre. Speaking on behalf of the Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe, Ms Beauty Bhulu of Glen Lodge, said the fees were eating into their revenue as businesses and implored the company to consider coming up with a more accommodative model so as to ensure companies remained viable.

In response, TTI executive chairperson and managing director Mr Lizwe Mabuza concurred and promised that his management team will caucus on the matter for a win-win situation.

"I appreciate the calls, they are genuine and coming from an equally genuine business organisation. We are going to sit in the boardroom and see how best we can remodel the existing packages, which will be a win-win situation for both our business customers and ourselves," he said.

"We are in this together as we all have genuine love and interest to develop our beautiful city."
Mr Mabuza quashed allegations that his company was not properly awarded tender based on claims that it did not have a tax certificate.

"For a lack of a better word, those allegations are just lunacy and nonsensical.  Which organisation can win a tender without proper papers? It just shows that those making such a claim are empty, they have no knowledge of how the tender system goes about in this country," he said.

"In any event, if one has a problem with how we got this tender, they must go to those who gave us the tender, we never awarded ourselves this tender but we believe the awarding authority did its due diligence work and saw us as a deserving bidder."