REVISITING THE PARKING METER SCHEME

IN today’s offering, we will revisit the Parking Meter issue, hopefully for the last time.

A few weeks ago, a well-known journalist wrote a piece mentioning that the City Council had appointed a Committee to re-negotiate the Parking Meter Contract with Smart City, a Mexican company. The journalist claimed that the Council was “playing dead” on the issue and when the public was disarmed and became quiescent the Parking Meters would deftly be reimposed. Whatever might be the Council’s strategy, we would like to remind the public and the Council’s re-negotiators of the following:-

1. The primary reason why the Council wished to impose Parking Meters on the city was to raise revenue. It was not to control or regulate traffic and many are confusing these issues. That is the reason why the meters were placed in streets and places where there was absolutely no traffic problem. And in the few streets with a traffic problem, the Police have always successfully regulated them.

2. In any company, the shareholders receive income on the amount of value, that is, the money and assets they contribute to the company’s capital. In the Parking Meter Company, Smart City claimed it would have contributed US$10 million. There were no accounts presented to authenticate how this alleged US$10 million was arrived at.
The City Council would have contributed the value of the road system of Georgetown which would be worth billions of Guyana dollars. The actual value of the roads to be used for the Parking Meter Scheme could easily be worked out, and the values used in the recent case before the Caribbean Court of Justice where Trinidadian road-building companies were suing Government could be helpful.

In addition to the road system, the other contribution the Council will make is the continuous maintenance of the road margins and shoulders where the Parking Meters are placed. This has to be done to make comfortable and safe parking possible and to avoid legal actions if vehicles sustain any damage at the place of parking. The Council has this responsibility for the 20 years of the Contract’s life.

Further, when the first attempt to impose Parking Meters was tried, the Council deployed one-third of the Constabulary to the Scheme, costing the City hundreds of thousands of dollars. The cost of deploying the Constabulary has to be factored into the Council’s contribution to the Company.

In the original contract, Smart City would have received 80 percent of the takings and the Council 20 percent. On the basis of their respective contributions to the capital of the Company, it would appear that the Council should have received at least 80 percent of the takings.

3. The negotiators should take into account that the majority of the citizens do not wish to have Parking Meters and that the minority who may wish to have them are unwilling to pay the steep charges proposed. If the negotiators hope to be successful in re-negotiating the Contract with Smart City, a lot of public relations will have to be done to convince the citizens and in particular the business community of the feasibility and use of Parking Meters and to have the parking fees drastically reduced.

4. The organised group who were agitating against Parking Meters have been publicly insisting that the Contract which was made with Smart City was an illegal one and they would be prepared to challenge it in the Courts. Other NGO’s would be prepared to join in a class action. The legal status of the Contract should be ascertained by the negotiators as quickly as possible to avoid the risk of confusion.

5. Some attempt should be made to have an indication of the minimum conditions Smart City would require. Many consumers are of the view that Smart City would have already decided to withdraw from the Scheme since the adversarial milieu and the new conditions would not be to their liking. We have outlined the above in the hope of alerting the negotiators how the consumers are thinking

There has been one surprising and positive spinoff from this Parking Meter affair. It has been able to invoke an opposition which transcended race, religion, political affiliation, class and all the other divisive forces in the Guyanese society. Many political commentators have over the years treated these divisions as permanent and unchangeable. The opposition to this Parking Meter Scheme has demonstrated that Guyanese people are fundamentally more united than political commentators would suspect and are prepared to act in unity once they understand the issues and have professional leadership. Bouquets should also be given to the political parties for resisting the pull of being involved and showed that they are not mechanistically partisan.

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