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Freedom Mupanedemo Midlands Bureau

GWERU City Council has abandoned its controversial old ticketing system for parking and is now issuing temporary receipts to motorists as it prepares to introduce an automated parking system.

The local authority had for long been at loggerheads with motorists for using an old parking system whereby those intending to park had to look for a parking marshal on the streets who would then mark the number of hours a motorist intended to park.

Council parking marshals started issuing hand written receipts since the beginning of the month, with speculation high that the cash-strapped city had failed to raise funds to buy parking discs.

Acting finance director Mr Owen Masimba said council phased out the use of parking discs and was introducing machine receipting and an automated parking system.

“We are doing away with the old system whereby motorists had to buy those old parking disks,” he said.

“The major reason is that it was no longer economic to buy those prepaid parking discs and we are also trying to move with technology for the convenience of our clients.”

Mr Masimba said the local authority had since bought machines enough for all their parking marshals and were only awaiting delivery.

“We are only waiting for the delivery and soon we will be using this new system which also has an advantage of accountability,” he said.

Mr Masimba said the local authority was looking for partners to help it introduce an automated parking system.

“We are currently running adverts inviting investors willing to partner with council to install sensors around the city so that we also move with technology,” he said.

“This is the trend in other cities and we want to also move to that level where a vehicle is automatically recorded after parking.”

Gweru, whose parking marshals have often been accused of ambushing motorists, has on several occasions, been taken to court by motorists who will be contesting paying fines for parking without discs.