Nairobi county representatives are calling for a new strategy to improve collection of parking fees as a major source of revenue.
Parking services earned the county only Sh1.97 billion instead of the targeted Sh3.54 billion last financial year.
Auditor General Edward Ouko has questioned the county’s failure to account for Sh238 million raised from vehicle parking fees.
Budget and Appropriations committee chairman Robert Mbatia yesterday told the Star his committee is not satisfied with some of the county’s revenue streams.
“As a committee, we felt the Executive needs to come up with more strategies to boost the streams of revenue collection within the city,” Mbatia said.
Besides parking fees, other key streams of revenue are rates, business permits, fees for billboards and advertisements and building permits.
“We had earlier agreed to reduce the parking fee around the city centre, hoping it would decongest the city, but did it?” Mbatia asked.
Embakasi ward rep Michael Ogada said parking is not generating income as expected.
“As much as we are trying to enhance the county’s revenue collection, the parking system should also be looked at,” Ogada said.
Last Wednesday the Budget committee asked the Executive why city parking bays have been overtaken by private ones.
“Most of these privately owned parking lots are not even licensed and as a committee we recommend some changes. They should be licensed,” Mbatia said.
In March, City Hall announced reduction of downtown parking fees to Sh200 from Sh300 to attract motorists who have been avoiding public parking.
The county has been losing millions of shillings in revenue yearly as many motorists prefer the cheaper private parking. Some residents leave cars at home and take public transport.
Nairobi has 12,000 parking slots and 1,601 loading zones. The county intends to increase the number of parking spaces to 20,000 in a year’s time.
According to the fiscal strategy paper for 2018, City Hall plans to utilise out-of-town spaces, private parking through partnerships, and build multi-storey parking lots.
“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,” the report reads.
The 124 MCAs and county assembly staff have been allocated 150 parking spaces in the law courts parking areas.
However, some MCAs have been parking along City Hall Way and Mama Ngina and General Kago streets, which are meant for the public, leading to revenue losses.