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Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Harare City Council has approved a joint venture parking business with Parkrite Africa.
Parkrite Africa, owned by Zimbabweans and Israelis, will provide parking services to cities and towns within Zimbabwe as well as in the SADC region.
In the deal, Harare City will get royalties for every new business opened by Parkrite Africa locally and in the region.
The city also recommended City Parking and Easipark Harare to incorporate into their systems some elements of Parkrite Africa system to enhance the capacity and functionality of their current parking systems in order to achieve maximum revenue collection.

This follows a visit by four councillors and two city officials to Israel where the Parkrite system is operational. The delegation told the council business committee on June 24 this year that the Parkrite system had a prepaid parking function, therefore all the parking revenue was collected in advance of service provision.

This, they argued enhanced financial planning and forecasting. They also said the system was “cashless” as it used mobile payment services such as EcoCash and Telecash.
No one handled cash, thereby reducing fraud, cash handling expenses and thefts.

“The model of application is such that there is no redundant and or recurring capital expense on the part of council as there is no investment in equipment, which may later become obsolete. The system can be complemented and/or integrated to existing parking systems to provide a full integrated package, read part of the committee’s minutes.