Harare in bid to regain its lustre City Parking to introduce automated services

HARARE City Council has vowed to ensure sanity returns in the city and will engage law enforcement agents to ensure vendors leave the Central Business District forever.

Vendors have mushroomed everywhere, selling vegetables, fruits and other wares on roadsides since a blitz launched recently which drove them out.

They are resisting orders by council and Government to relocate to designated vending sites outside the city centre.

In an interview yesterday, Harare City Council spokesperson Mr Michael Chideme said council would engage business to ensure sanity prevailed in the city once referred to as “Sunshine City” because of its then high status of cleanliness.

“Now in the new era, we are coming in to make sure that Harare’s Sunshine City status is restored,” said Mr Chideme.

“We will work with law enforcement agents like we have always done to bring sanity and finality to the issue of illegal vending.

“Everyone now accepts that Harare has to move on. It has to move on in the direction of order and in the direction that brings confidence.”

Mr Chideme said ridding the city of illegal vendors would help attract investment to Harare.

“Once the informal sector is at designated sites, it means that even the business person is confident to come and invest in the CBD because they know that their HARARE City Parking plans to introduce premier automated and integrated parking services that enhance efficiency and customer value in its operations.

In an interview with The Herald yesterday, City Parking spokesperson Mr Francis Mandaza said the company had already installed bay sensor-enhanced parking system on 3 000 parking bays in Harare’s Central Business District (CBD) this year.

“The system has various components that are integrated to ensure high effectiveness; the integration involves the censors installed on the parking bay,” he said.

“The system makes supervision easy and closes collusion between marshals and motorists and between motorists and the street touts.”

business will not be defiled by hordes of people trading outside their premises,” he said.

“We are also taking advantage of the new era to encourage business in the CBD to renew their properties.”

Mr Mandaza said the bay sensor was a visible electronic devise planted in the middle of the parking bay, which communicates with the parking marshal’s hand-held device on any parking bay activity such as vehicle entry and exit, expired tickets and vacant bay.

He said the system would sent realtime reports to the Back Office Management Information Systems on the number of parked vehicles, paid and unpaid parked vehicles and vehicles not attended to by the marshal.

“The bay sensor system enhances efficiency and effectiveness in our operations as it tightens supervision,” said Mr Mandaza.

“If a bay is vacant, the system requires the marshal to confirm this by tagging the bay sensor (bringing the marshal’s device into contact with sensor).”

Mr Chideme said businesses had a right to remove illegal vendors from their premises.

“The business community in the CBD must know there is a by-law that empowers them to remove people from the front

“If the bay is occupied, the system requires the parking marshal to log the vehicle, and if the parking marshal does not tag the parking bay or sensor or log the vehicle, the system ranks the marshal as a non-performer.

Mr Mandaza said the system benefited motorists by allowing them to pre-pay for parking from the comfort of their homes or offices.

“A cashless pre-paid smart card will be issued to motorists and they will be able to load and re-load parking time,” he said.

“The enhanced parking bay sensor system enables to view free parking bays as they drive into the CBD on the website.

“For example, a motorist wanting to park on Kwame Nkrumah Avenue can get information about vacant bays on that street.”

of their business in accordance with the Roads Verges By-law,” he said.

Mr Chideme encouraged vendors to operate at stalls established by council in the city.

“We have available sites which are there