Zomba City to introduce parking fees

Zomba City Council (ZCC)has unveiled plans to introduce car park fees by April 30 this year as part of a strategy to boost revenue.

To date, the council was only collecting parking fees in taxi ranks.

But according to a statement from the council made available to The Nation, motorists will be paying K150 per hour and the move is also expected to assist the council in providing essential services to city residents.

Reads the statement in part: “As a council, we noted that we are missing out on revenue collection opportunity, considering the overgrowing demands for services the council is mandated to provide using the few existing financial resources.”

The statement states that the council used to collect less in revenue and that some of the challenges it faced included understaffing of car parking collectors as the council only had three, lack of sensitisation to city residents and ineffective monitoring mechanism.

In an interview yesterday, the council’s public relations officer Mercy Chaluma said K150 is in line with the council’s by-laws.

“There has also been an increase in the services the council has to provide such as waste management,” she said.

The council, therefore, warns car owners who will not comply with the new directive that they will face penalties as stipulated in the council’s transport and traffic by-laws.