BCC to auction impounded vehicles

THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) will next month auction 80 impounded vehicles whose owners have not claimed them for over 30 days, with motorists saying the municipality was using its skewed towing policy to disposess them of their cars.

BCC senior public relations officer Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said council has been forced to invoke Statutory Instrument (S.I) 63 of 2015 after vehicle owners failed to claim back their cars that had been impounded.

The move comes weeks after most motorists and Bulawayo residents criticised council's exorbitant towing fees that have seen the municipality getting $6 while each contracted towing company gets $54 for each vehicle that would have been towed away.

Council charges a flat fee of $60 as towing fees regardless of distance covered from the city at a time most recovery and towing companies charge $1 per kilometre.

The municipality also charges a storage fee for each car at $23 per day.

The Statutory Instrument that council is using to auction vehicles that were towed away empowers council to auction the vehicles after issuing a public notice in the press.

Mrs Mpofu said some of the vehicles have been held by council for more than two years.

"The City of Bulawayo notifies owners of immobilised vehicles in terms of Statutory Instrument (S.I) 63 of 2015 section 5(2) that listed vehicles were unclaimed within 30 days, the vehicles will be sold by public auction on June 14," said Mrs Mpofu.

She said council has tried to engage the vehicle owners to no avail.

"Engagement has been ongoing. It is noted that in some instances identification of individual owners proves to be a challenge as some of the cars change hands without proper registration. Council used the advert as one of the tools of engagement with the owners of vehicles in terms of S.I 63 of 2015," she said.

Motorists criticised council saying the new development will see most of them losing their vehicles.

They said council does not give them breathing space to clear the fines.

"We're charged $60 towing fees and the council does not give us an opportunity to pay for the fines once they clamp our cars. It's a clamp-and-tow policy which is wrong. The moment your vehicle is clamped for any fine, it gets towed away. So the fee accumulates very fast and it becomes very difficult to clear the fine. With this system we will continue to lose our vehicles," said Mr Mthandazo Mpala.

Another motorist said pirate taxi drivers will be hard hit by the policy as they are the ones mostly targeted by council.

Recently, Bulawayo United Residents' Association Mr Winos Dube said it was wrong for council to charge a flat fee for towing vehicles.

He said violating traffic laws does not mean that one has to be crucified.

"We want to make a strong appeal to council to be considerate because you cannot understand that a car is being towed for less than a kilometre or so and you charge $60 which is not easy money to come by," said Mr Dube.

He said council must understand the economic situation faced by the general public.

"If only they could come up with a figure to be charged per kilometre it would be better because $60 is very high," said Mr Dube.