Parking levy hard hit as City Hall workers strike persists

Income from daily parking has been worst hit since City Hall workers downed their tools on Tuesday last week protesting failure to implement a 15 per cent salary increment deal agreed with the county.

Since the strike started, income from daily parking has been on a downward trend, with many motorists having a field day in the central business district as parking attendants and enforcement officers are missing in action.

STRIKE

Daily parking revenue has dipped to an average of Sh947,000 from an average of Sh1.2 million before the strike started.

This means that City Hall is currently losing on average at least Sh253,000 daily from parking with more also lost from parking penalties as the attendants are not present to clamp vehicles that have not paid parking fees.

On Tuesday when the strike started, the county raked in Sh1.15 million as revenue from daily parking out of the total Sh41.4 million collected that day.

Parking penalties were Sh6,000.

This then took a hit the following day when the revenue stream recorded Sh996,400.

Parking penalties reduced to Sh2,000.

On Thursday, daily parking revenue was Sh967,800 with no parking penalties.

The trend continued on Friday when the revenue stream recorded Sh873, 800 with parking penalties still at zero.

Fast forward to Monday, when the striking workers went to court to hear the mention of their case; the revenue from the stream got a shot in the arm, improving slightly to Sh923,500 as well as the parking penalties which improved to Sh8,000.

INCOME

The following day, last week’s trend came back as the income dipped to Sh906,600.

The same fate was witnessed with the parking penalties which dropped to Sh2, 000.

On Wednesday, daily parking income reduced further to Sh841,700 while the parking penalties maintained the previous day’s figure.

Nairobi County director of parking services Tom Tinega admitted that the strike has indeed hit the department hard, with only a quarter of the revenue stream’s potential currently being realised.

“Indeed, we have been losing a lot as only some motorists have been willingly paying for parking while most have failed to do so in the absence of any enforcement,” said Mr Tinega.

Last month, Mr Tinega said that the cut on daily parking fees from Sh300 to Sh200 saw income from daily parking in Nairobi drop from the daily average of Sh1.5 million before introduction of the new charges to an average of Sh1.2 million, a 10 per cent decrease.