Revealed: Sonko’s plan to reduce parking fee to Sh200
Nairobi motorists will start enjoying reduced parking fees from October this year, according to the county’s treasury.
This will come into effect after the County Assembly amends the Finance Bill that will see parking fee in the capital city slashed down from the current Sh300 to Sh200.
The proposals are contained in the County Fiscal strategy Paper 2018 and are also in sync with Governor Mike Sonko’s campaign pledge and contents of his manifesto where he promised to reduce parking fees in the city if he was elected.
According to the Budget and Appropriations Committee chairman Robert Mbatia, the earliest the reduction could take effect was September 30, as the Finance Bill, which is to be amended to pave way for the intended fee reduction, would be presented to the county assembly for review in that same month.
INCREASE PARKING SPACES
Nairobi County is also seeking to increase the number of parking spaces to 20,000 in a year’s time.
Currently, Nairobi has a total of 12,000 parking slots of which 10,399 are daily and seasonal ticket holders’ slots, while loading zones account for 1,601.
And to effect this intended parking space increase in the capital city, the county is planning to utilise out-of-town spaces, private parking through partnerships, and build multi-storey parking lots.
“We have chosen to reduce the parking fees to work with a more realistic budget and also the County Fiscal strategy Paper 2018 report will be tentatively adopted at the end of April,” said Mr Mbatia.
A week ago, Members of the County Assembly passed a motion to have open spaces turned into multi-storey car parks while also proposing that every commercial building being put up to have floors for parking.
DROP IN REVENUE
Members of the county assembly have been blamed for a drop in parking revenue along City Hall Way, Mama Ngina Street and General Kago Street, despite having 150 parking spaces allocated to them at the Law Courts.
“Only 100 parking slots are allocated to county staff despite approximately 1,200 staff owning vehicles. The vehicles are still parked in city zones leading to lost parking revenue,” says the fiscal strategy paper report.
According to the report, parking services earned the county Sh1.97 billion compared to a target of Sh3.54 billion in the 2016-17 financial year.
Parking collection up to the end of the first half the 2017-18 stood at Sh787.3 million. The annual target is Sh3.5 billion.