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Pakani Operations Manager- Muzi Dlamini
Although having started operations hardly a year ago,
Intellipark L.M, popularly known as
PAKANI, has suddenly
become the buzzword in Manzini.
Whether the operation has gained popularity for the
wrong or right reasons is no subject for discussion in
this forum.
The bottom line is
that many a people still do not
comprehend how it came about and what it is here for.
Read on and learn more about Manzini's parking
resolution.
PAKANI, an outsourced operation by the
Municipal Council of Manzini, was initially scheduled
for commencement on October 20th 2006 but due
to the fact that then it was not gazetted for everything had
to be put on halt.
It actually took a year for the gazette to be finalized
and published hence the operation ended up beginning on
December 17th 2007.
But
what is the rationale behind it?
T his is actually a product of the
Municipal Council of Manzini’s long time dream to make
sure parking is always available in Manzini city, heavily
congested as it were.
“Intellipark L.M, a company registered in Swaziland, won
the tender to run the operation especially because of
its vast experience in this field. Our mother company
engaged experts from overseas to conduct preliminary
studies for the project,” says Muzi Dlamini, Operations manager.
T he study uncovered that Manzini, albeit heavily
jam-packed with traffic, has got ample parking space -
but it was being abused.
“The
experts discovered that people park their vehicles on
the streets for at least eight hours while they are at
work, giving no room for other motorists to use the same
bay. It was also discovered that people working in other
towns or cities parked their cars in Manzini early in
the morning and proceeded by public transport to their
places of work only to return for them after working
hours,” adds Dlamini.
It was seen that parking space could be availed if the
existing long-term parking could be discouraged and that
on-street parking was the only possible solution.
“We
could have gone for parking metres but considered the
capital investment aspect that goes with it against the
prevailing unfriendly economic conditions in the
country. Parking metres require a huge capital
investment whose return would have been born by the end
consumer, in this case the motorist. Again, had we used
parking metres the levy would have been higher to
ascertain that the company realizes some return on its
investment. Despite this glaring desperate need for
parking space in Manzini I don’t think people would have
consented to pay more than what they are paying now.
Another problem with parking metres is that they do not
provide the flexibility of parking in different bays
using the same ticket as long as one is still within the
purchased time. That is why we opted for the
Pay-To-Display (ticketing) system,” he states.
As
naturally expected, when the operation kicked off it was
met with a certain degree of resistance from motorists.
T he reasons could have been that people did not
appreciate that the operation had been introduced for
their benefit.
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