An Expatriate Causes Pandemonium Over Parking In Abuja

An unidentified expatriate today caused a ruckus over parking in a central area of Abuja (the federal capital of Nigeria).  


According to the article reported by Dolapo Adetunji of N2N America, the brouhaha was set off when the man was asked to move his vehicle to a designed parking as he had illegally parked. The civil defense corps policing the property was simply attempting to inform the man that it is “no parking” zone.

He is believed to have lost his composure and appearing very agitated went into out bursts screaming, “Who employed you? Who gave you this uniform?” He also allegedly hit one of the officers before kicking a sign board during his tantrum. He drove off after this tirade.

The on-lookers and the officers were bewildered by the attitude of entitlement the foreigner man portrayed, leaving them wondering if that’s how they behaved in their own countries.

The identity of the man has not been established.

Credit:  Dolapo Adetunji (Reporter) & Photos by Sunny Nwabuike

24/08/11

Park-and-Ride Facilities Users in South Africa are Frustrated Due to Insufficient Parking

THE excitement of outlying residents over the establishment of the MyCiti public transport bus route up the west coast road has been dampened by a lack of park-and-ride facilities for those not serviced by the MyCiti feeder routes.


The MyCiti trunk route from the city centre up the west coast along the congested R27 to Blouberg was opened in May this year, enabling commuters to avoid sitting in rush hour traffic.


Feeder routes servicing suburbs such as Blouberg, Parklands and Table View transport residents to the main station at Bayside Mall where they transfer onto the trunk route into the city.


Commuters further north, in suburbs like Melkbosstrand and Atlantis, and even in Darling beyond the city's boundary have also welcomed the service as it allows them to avoid the congestion which builds up from Table View.


But finding parking close to the Bayside Mall bus station has put a damper on their enthusiasm.


Darling resident Paul Darne said he travels into Cape Town once a week to conduct business in the city and welcomed the opportunity to skip the rush hour traffic.


He said after driving to Blouberg he parked in the Table View shopping centre opposite the Bayside Mall as there was a large and predominantly empty parking area with no parking charges.


He said he parked on the perimeter of the car park and was upset to find a notice on his car warning him that if he parked there again he would have his wheel clamped.


The Bayside Mall, he said, was not an option as it charged an hourly parking rate.


"I would love to use the bus to connect to town," said Darne.


While the city is extending the trunk and feeder routes further along the R27, planning to extend all the way to Atlantis, by its own admission it has not planned for park-and-ride facilities.


City spokesperson Kylie Hatton said commuters driving to the bus station was "not something that we want to encourage too much".


Hatton said the focus was on setting up more feeder routes than supplying parking facilities.


The primary focus was extending the MyCiti routes, she said.


"The park-and-ride is not a primary priority for our project team."


Table View Rate Payers Associations (TVRA) vice chairman Eric Joffe said the city "didn't think out of the box" and consider practical difficulties.


Table View Shopping Centre manager Athena Beard said the centre did not have a formal arrangement with the city to allow MyCiti commuters to park there.


However, she confirmed that meetings had been held with the city regarding providing park-and-ride facility and were "on-going in order to understand the city's requirements and marry these with the centre's".


She said at present commuters who regularly required parking in order to catch the MyCiti bus could make arrangements with the centre's management.


Across the road, Bayside Mall landlord Rael Abramowitz said discussions over parking had taken place with the city about "two or more years ago" and the council was told there would be capacity for commuters to park at the mall.


He said there were about 30 people who had made arrangements to park at the mall. However, the mall charged a monthly fee of R250.












Credit: African News
28 August 2011

$5 Million for Parking Technology Developed in Africa

During a recent business meeting in Lagos (Nigeria), a US based parking payment solutions company name undisclosed with a 5-man delegates headed by Mr D.C Archer witnessed the live presentation and 2nd phase testing of "parkbycodedcard." 


To read more, please follow the link http://www.prlog.org/11635706-5-million-for-parking-technology-developed-in-africa.html









Credit: Prlog Press Release
24/08/11

Uproar Unabated in Liberia Over City Parking

Decision by the City Council of Monrovia headed by acting City Mayor Mary Brown continues to be a source of acrimonies dispute in the country, leading to court action against the municipal government.

Central Monrovia has taken a fresh new shape following the refurbishments of streets by an expatriate company and the design of the streets with traffic signs by the Monrovia City Government.

It was not long with the controversial head of the city government, Mary Broh, passed around flyers announcing a change in traffic movement and payment of fees for parking in central city.

The edict of the City Hall and its effect came like rebels from the north. It commenced around the commercial enclave of Randall Street on which banks and expatriate merchandise moguls are centralized.

As street attendants hired by the City Hall served tickets of L$50 per hour to car owners around the heavily commercialized street, there were no loud alarms heard at this initial stage because, as Liberians treated their compatriots during the civil war, the effect was not directly affecting them.

Then the fees collection hit Carey, Gurley and Ashmun Streets and eventually every other street, like a town-trap or slow poison.

The alarms came--the loudest--and never ceased since.

Supporters of the ordinance argue that Liberia as the oldest country in Africa and Monrovia therefore the oldest city cannot be exempted from best practices found in even younger counties and cities.

The supporters say parking fees are collected in cities in the United States and parts of Africa and help to bolster municipal budget and help keep cities clean and beautiful.

According to the supporters of the city parking fees ordinance, Central Monrovia is becoming unsightly and chaotic because all kinds of vehicles enter the city and take to street corners in haphazard and hazardous way.

It is to sanitize things in the country’s commercial and political capital that the parking fees are imposed, they argue.

They say those who criticize the fees charged by the City Government are ironically the same people to criticize the Government for maintaining a dirty city and who praise cities of other countries for their beauty.

There are three categories of Liberians who oppose the parking fees--those who contend that the country’s economy is not ripe for such an exercise and that it should not be encouraged after all; those who think the exercise is necessary but the fee of L$50 per hour is exorbitant; and those who believe the exercise is illegal and fraudulent and must therefore be stopped.

Some Liberians say justification for the car parking fees in Monrovia by comparing Liberia and other countries is faulty and indefensible because the economies are incomparable.

Liberia is just emerging from long years of war and the citizens are strenuously endeavoring to cope, unlike the USA and other economies that have been steady, peaceful and prosperous for long.

As one pundit contended, even many of those owning cars get them from loans which viciously slash their incomes and disable them to be able to cope with several other demands, including an L$50 per hour parking fee.

Some Liberians agree with the parking fee ordinance but say the amount charged is excruciatingly exorbitant for most of the people who own cars.

“Parking your car for L$50 per hours means car owner working or doing business in Central Monrovia pays at least L$400 per day, L$2000 per week or L$8000, over US$100 per month,” James Mayson-Gboor, a businessman down Water Side who leaves his vehicle on Ashmun/Randall Street every day.

“This is totally absurd, particularly for us who don’t generate a profit of that amount in a month,” he said. “If they mean well, they should reduce the amount to at least $20 per house or $1000 per month. We need some order in Monrovia and imposing such fees will do, but we cannot afford an exploitation of the situation by Mary Broh.”

There are other Liberians who also believe that collection of parking fees by the City Government is beyond the scope of Acting City Mayor Mary Broh and is illegal.

Leading these Liberians is human rights defender T. Dempster Brown, who has taken Madam Broh to the Supreme Court in question of her decision and its constitutional implications.

The human rights lawyer objects that Acting City Mayoress does not have the right to arbitrarily impose taxes.
He pointed to Article 34, Section (d) of the Liberian Constitution which states that “The Legislature shall have the power to levy taxes, duties, impose, excise and other revenues…,” this provision of the Liberian Constitution forbids non-judicial officer or entity to exceed its jurisdiction.

He objected Broh’s role as an Acting City Mayor, operating under Executive law, to erect parking lots and to impose taxes without taking into consideration Article 34 of the Liberian Constitution which forbids her from doing so. He said the Executive Law gives her one year to act as Mayor.

According to Brown, Broh is in total disregard of the Liberian Constitution by collecting fifty Liberian Dollars per hour for parking on the parking lots erected by her.

The writ he issued to the Supreme Court states that the fees being charged by Broh are exorbitant and unconstitutional and that they are not even going into the Government’s revenue but into her personal accounts.

He therefore prayed that the Supreme Court of Liberia grant his petition and restrain and prohibit Broh from further collecting and imposing taxes and from violating the Liberian Constitution.







Credit: Africa News
August 2011

City Motorists Decry Parking Fines in Rwanda

Kigali motorists have lodged complaints about the unfair criteria used to fine parking offences.Motorists who allegedly refuse to pay parking fees of Rwf 100, are fined Rwf 50,000.

Normally, each vehicle parked at designated streets in the city is required to pay an hourly parking fee of Rwf100, and those in default of the rule are subjected to a fine.

Most of the motorists interviewed by The New Times apportion the blame on the parking fee collectors who place parking receipts on vehicles and then leave the spot.

The parking fee collectors are under the auspices of Kigali Veterans Cooperative Association (KVCS).
Emmanuel Nkusi, a motorist, expressed frustration with the collectors.

"There are times I park my car and go about my businesses. When I come back, I find a receipt, then look for the parking fee collectors in vain," Nkusi lamented.

He said that efforts to explain the situation to the KVCS officers fall on deaf ears as they maintain that he pays the fine.

Another motorist, Eric Kimenyi, said his log book was confiscated after he defaulted on a parking ticket.
He said he parked outside a supermarket and upon coming out, he found a receipt but could not trace who to pay the fee after which he drove off.

"The traffic police stopped me one day and asked for my permit, insurance and registration card. I had everything. Then KVCS people came saying that they were looking for car defaulters and my car's number plate was on the list," Kimenyi narrated.

He said that without further clarification apart from claims that he was a defaulter, they confiscated his registration card and told him to report to the KVCS offices.

Kimenyi says that officials at the KVCS office alleged that there was no way to prove his case and he ended up paying the Rwf50,000 fine.

He says that his registration card is still with the police.

According to the Director General of KVCS, Godfrey Bbosa, the parking fee collectors are undergoing several training programs to improve their operations.

The Kigali City Communications Director, Bruno Rangira, said there has been a lot of complaints, especially concerning the criteria used in charging parking fines.

"We shall have a meeting with KVCS to iron out the issues that have been raised," he pledged.









Credit: Africa News
August 2011

Face of African Parking Entrepreneur 2011

Parking in Africa blog recently nominated Henok Tesfaye the President and CEO of U-Street Parking inc. as this year face of African Parking Entrepreneur ...

Ask any of the thousands of Ethiopian immigrants working as parking attendants or cabbies around Washington whom they aspire to be like, and you'll probably hear about Henok Tesfaye.


Tesfaye, 37, started as a parking valet in downtown Washington two decades ago, saving a few hundred dollars each month to pay for business classes and start his company. Today, his U Street Parking (named after his first parking lot, at 12th and U streets NW) ranks among the biggest parking companies in the region.

His success is part of a wave of accomplishment by Ethiopians, who began settling in Washington after fleeing violence in their native country in the 1970s. Tesfaye's 12-year ascent in Washington's notoriously cutthroat parking industry is especially notable because it was so unlikely.

Parking is not an easy business. It's marked by high volume, long hours and low margins. For Tesfaye, the years of 16-hour days and endless financial pressures culminated in a phone call in December. A year after partnering with a Los Angeles-based parking giant, Tesfaye won a lucrative contract to oversee 37,000 public parking spaces at Dulles International and Reagan National airports, including four garages, three surface lots and a valet service.

"When I got the call that we had got the contract, I cried," said Tesfaye, from his office in a rowhouse on Rhode Island Avenue NE. "We were a long shot. We've always been a long shot."

U Street's 25 percent share of the nearly $1.3 million in annual management and incentive fees from the airport contracts, which started this summer, could net the company millions over the next five years, along with increased visibility and other clients.

Tesfaye had become the Ethiopian version of the American Dream.

"He's the leading young entrepreneur in our community. . . . I know him from when he was a parking attendant, and it's great to see these types of businesses grow," said Dereje Desta, the publisher of Zethiopia, an Ethiopian newspaper in the District.
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The Washington area's Ethiopian community is the largest in the nation. According to Census Bureau data, about 30,000 Ethiopian immigrants -- about one-fifth of those in the United States -- live in the region. But the local figure has a history of being underreported and probably tops 100,000, according to the Ethiopian American Constituency Foundation and the Ethiopian Community Development Council.

Ethiopians came in droves after a bloody military coup in 1974, and they worked in low-paying first jobs as cabbies and cooks and parking attendants. But they have begun to stake their claims. Tesfaye's company now employs 100 people, including many immigrants from Ethiopia and Mauritania.

Open for business

Ethiopian businesses have sprung up across the Washington area. A new crop has appeared in the Skyline section of Falls Church, and restaurants and coffee shops are opening across Shaw, especially along Ninth Street NW, known informally as "Little Ethiopia." (Five years ago, an attempt to get a formal designation from the city failed.)

"We've grown, and now we've really begun to make a name for ourselves, in the business sense," said Tamrat Medhin, a financial adviser at Access Capital, a Falls Church real estate investment firm that has poured millions into luxury properties in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

Other Ethiopian success stories include Abebe "Abe" Abraham, the founder of CMI Management in Alexandria, which has landed millions of dollars' worth of government maintenance and other contracts since it was started in 1989; restaurateur Zed Wondemu, who started Zed's restaurant in Georgetown and has since expanded into Virginia; and the Ethiopian-born doctors at Blue Nile Medical Center in Alexandria.


It's a younger generation of Ethiopians, however, that is making the biggest strides, community members say. Hailu Fulass Hailu, a professor of linguistics at the University of the District of Columbia who left Ethiopia in 1977 and arrived in the District two years later, said many hardworking Ethiopians younger than 40 "are quite adventurous, and many have turned that into being quite successful."

Many of Hailu's generation came to the United States on education visas and scholarships, he said. "I find it remarkable because the success we have now is not about education," he said. "It's about risk."

The Ethiopian Community Development Council, based in Arlington County, has stimulated business growth by granting micro-loans to entrepreneurs such as Tesfaye. Recent clients include the owners of a gas station and a salon in Northern Virginia, who have expanded and hired dozens of other immigrants.

"With more and more people coming, there's a greater diversity with the types of businesses we're getting and the types of Africans, especially with the young," said Tsehaye Teferra, the council's president.

A chance to expand

Tesfaye's start is reminiscent of the modest beginnings of some of his parking-lot predecessors. One of the local industry giants, Colonial Parking, was started by two young George Washington University graduates on a tiny lot at 25th and E streets NW in the early 1950s. All-day parking cost 30 cents.

In 1998, Tesfaye, then working as a parking valet in downtown Washington, was exhausted and struggling to pay his bills. He was 24 and, as he puts it, "clueless about the world. It was difficult."
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After years of saving, Tesfaye took a gamble on a rough-and-tumble stretch of U Street NW, renting an $800-a-month, 20-car lot at 12th and U streets.

Problem was, people thought it was too dangerous to park there. "I would get out on the street and wave people in, but no one would come," Tesfaye said.

But as the revitalized U Street corridor slowly grew, so, too, did Tesfaye's business. The parking lot expanded to include a used-car lot. Valet service was added at a few nearby restaurants and bars. Tesfaye's three brothers immigrated to the United States to join the rapidly growing family business. Tesfaye took out a $35,000 loan from the Ethiopian Community Development Council, and his company took over management of the 1,200-car parking lot on the site of the old Washington Convention Center.

By the mid-2000s, Tesfaye was a success story. He has held fundraisers for the mayor and bought a home in Alexandria. He even bought his mother a restaurant along U Street and named it Etete, her Amharic nickname.

L&R Group, which oversees parking at the New York area's three international airports and at Oakland International Airport in California, reached out to Tesfaye in late 2008. The company wanted to bolster its presence in the Washington area to compete for the Dulles and National contracts.














Credit: Parking-in-Africa
August 2011

'Street parking deal to stay'

A top Harare City Council official says a controversial street parking deal with South African firm Easihold will remain in place, as hordes of youths clashed with city parking attendants in the city centre yesterday morning.

Council’s deal with Easihold has been under the spotlight as it emerged that the city was getting peanuts yet motorists were being forced to pay exorbitant parking fees by Easipark, the holding company of the joint venture.

Easipark workers told the Daily News yesterday that a group of youths chased them away in the morning, demanding to take over the lucrative street parking business.

“We only started work after police intervened,” said a parking attendant.

It was not possible to verify the reports with police. In May, Upfumi Kuvadiki, a youth group invaded the city centre demanding the termination of the joint venture deal and was only dispersed by police.

"But Thomas Muzuva, the incoming chairperson of council’s business committee, told the Daily News that a divorce with Easihold “is not an option”.

“One thing is certain. We are not pulling out of the joint venture agreement with Easihold SA as some are advocating. It is not an option we are considering and as a committee we will work hard to ensure sanity prevails and that council acts within legal confines,” said Muzuva.

“Those misguided elements that are agitating for a total pullout from the agreement do not understand the legal implications of the pullout and they forget that the South African company owns 40 percent of Easipark,” Muzuva said.

He said council signed an agreement that “unfortunately” gave the junior partner the right to appoint the same number of management officials as council, which is the senior partner with 60 percent shareholding.

The agreement, according to Muzuva, expressly stated that Easihold would enjoy sole charge of the day- to-day running of Easipark.

“The business committee will be meeting on the 18th  of August and we are going to request that the city abides by the agreement it signed and unfortunately it is Harare that is actually at the moment causing disruptions and acrimony in Easipark.

“In particular you will notice that the clique that is calling for the divorce with Easihold are former members of the city’s business committee and one wonders where their priorities lie,” he said.

Muzuva’s comments show that major fissures have emerged within the MDC dominated council, particularly after the reshuffle of committees.








Credit: Daily News
22/08/11