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Daily parking revenues hit hard as strike by City Hall employees bites


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 percent salary increment deal agreed with the county.

Since the strike began, income from daily parking has been on a downward trend with most motorists having a field day in the Central Business District with most parking attendants and enforcement officers both missing in action.

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 kicked off, the county raked in Sh1.15 million as revenue from daily parking out of the total Sh41.4 million collected that day. Parking penalties was Sh6,000.

This then took a hit the following day when the revenue stream recorded Sh996,400, the same to parking penalties which reduced to Sh2,000.

On Thursday, daily parking revenue reduced further to 967,800 with parking penalties going flat recording zero shillings.

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.

The following day, last week’s trend made a comeback as the income dipped to Sh906,600. The same trend 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 realized.

“Indeed we have been losing a lot as only some motorists have been willingly paying for parking while most have failed to do so with the absence of any enforcement. At least places outside the city centre have been making payments,” 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 the introduction of the new charges to an average of Sh1.2 million, a 10 percent decrease.

This was so even though the number of private motorists parking in the county increased by an average of 700 vehicles daily.