Hiked parking fee shocks motorists

Dar es Salaam. Ilala Municipality drivers on Thursday were met with a shocking experience after they were forced to incur a 60 per cent fee increase at all parking lots.

A new company commissioned to offer parking services in the municipality had increased the fee from Sh300 to Sh500 per hour.

Interviewed, some motorists said they had no problem with the new fee, but queried the rationale for such an exorbitant increase, considering the fact that no any improvement have been made to the parking facilities to warrant the hike.

They argued that municipal council authorities should have improved the infrastructure first before allowing the commissioned firm to increase the fee.

Mr Alli Hamza, a tax operator at Old Post Office described the move as an additional challenge to their business after the introduction of the Dar Rapid Transit (Dart) commuter bus services, tricycles (bajaj) and motorcycles commonly known as bodabodas. “We spend more than 14 hours in the parking lots. This means that we have to pay at least Sh5,500 a day. You can imagine how much I should set aside for just parking, and yet sometime the day passes without getting a single customer,” he said. The new charges show that, a car owner who wants a permanent parking space pays Sh132,000 for working six days per week and Sh154,000 for those working seven days a week.

Mr Amani Senya said that municipal authorities should have informed them before increasing the charges.

“I was in Kariakoo yesterday and I parked my car for about seven hours, when I was asked to pay, I learnt that the fee had been hiked,” he said.

A staff working with the new firm commissioned to offer parking services who identified herself as Amina said that they had started charging the new fee despite resistance and complains from drivers.

Responding on the queries, Dar es Salaam City Mayor Isaya Mwita Charles told The Citizen over the phone that the new charges were meant to improve the city’s general infrastructure, including parking.

He admitted that the new fee had been endorsed by the Full Council, but was still open for dialogue.

The mayor also noted that the new fee was intended to help the municipality collect more revenue for different recurrent and development projects.  “We want by the end of next year to be able to collect Sh3 billion every month because our collections right now are very low… imagine we had only Sh520 million in 2015/16 and we are ending 2016 with Sh1.3 billion per month.