New parking management system to create employment

16 May, 2021 - 00:05 0 Views
New parking management system to create employment Bulawayo City Council

The Sunday News

Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Municipal Reporter
TRENDY Three Investments which was last year awarded with a multimillion-dollar tender for the installation of parking management system in Bulawayo has said it needs a month to have the system up and running once they get the greenlight to start operations.

Bulawayo City Council (BCC) awarded the tender to Trendy Three Investments and the two will enter into a partnership to run the city parking system. The tender was finally awarded in September last year after 10 years since it was first proposed.

The local authority subsequently submitted the proposal to the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency (Zida), as per the requirements of the law, which has to date not endorsed the project.

Last week, Zida said the investment body was appraising the project proposal by the company and was also establishing whether the company had the capacity to embark on this milestone project.

Sunday News this week managed to get hold of the Trendy Three Investments which indicated that the company was waiting for the greenlight to start working on the first phase. In an exclusive interview, the company’s managing director, Mr Bongani Nyathi said they had initially expected to commence work in September but were now waiting for all the due diligence work that was being done by Zida.

He said while they understood that the project had taken too long to be implemented, it had given them the time to make all necessary preparatory works so that when the greenlight is given they immediately move in.

“In terms of getting the project off the ground, when we are given the greenlight, we are giving ourselves just close to a month, to get the first phase started and completed. We will try by all means to cover the biggest gap possible because already we are behind schedule as initially, we had aimed to begin work in September.

“What we have done, is that just a couple of weeks ago there was a delegation from Zida and BCC which went to South Africa, with our team, to get a firsthand explanation of all our projects in that country, we now await the final decision for us to start operations,” said Mr Nyathi.

He said one of the major advantages of the project was that it would create the much-needed employment for the people of Bulawayo.

“Our goal in this project is to assist street revenue collection without thinking there is some money being lost in the system. The system which we are going to put will show the number of cars that would have parked in the city’s parking bays and how much revenue has been collected. Since we are going to put a systematical system, hence there will be order in town, there won’t be any haphazard parking as we are experiencing now thereby, we are saying this is not a Trendy Three or BCC project but it’s a project for everyone so that we restore the city to what it was,” said Mr Nyathi.

He said the system will also to some extent benefit motorists because with a proper management system it becomes easy for even parking marshals to monitor these bays and ensure no criminal activities, like car breaking, takes place.

The initial shambolic process for the awarding of the tender had seen council being 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 won it.

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

 

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