The
Abuja administration has promised that the ‘Park and Pay’ policy that was
declared illegal by a court, and subsequently stopped, will return in a better
form.
A
Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court in Apo, Abuja had on April 14
declared the park and pay policy illegal, saying it should be stopped
forthwith.
Justice
Peter Affren had ruled there was no enabling law backing the policy after a
private savings and loans firm in the Nigerian capital city sued the Abuja
administration.
Prior
to the court ruling, the Abuja administration had, using four private firms,
collected fees from vehicle owners as parking charges within the city centre.
The firms also clamped vehicles that were ‘indiscriminately’ parked and forced
the owners to pay as much as N25,000 to get their cars back.
PEMIUM
TIMES had reported how residents of the Nigerian capital complained about the
policy, accusing the collectors of extortion. The residents largely celebrated
the ban on the policy.
However,
the FCT administration has now said it plans to fulfil the legal requirements
needed to reintroduce the policy.
Speaking
to PREMIUM TIMES, the Special Adviser on Media to the FCT Minister, Nosike Ogbuenyi,
said the Park and Pay policy would be repackaged.
“We
are going to have a repackage of Park and Pay system from what it used to be.
As we speak now, our legal department is finalizing work on the proposed bylaw
that will give it the legality it requires,” Mr. Ogbuenyi said.
He
said the Abuja residents abhorred the Park and Pay scheme because vendors were
hostile as the various organisations that ran the scheme underpaid them.
Mr.
Ogbuenyi said the ministry would ensure the operators pay the various employees
properly.
“The
ministry is looking into the issue of making sure that the operators of the
system treat their employees well in terms of salary to ensure that the salary
they pay is well above the National minimum wage level,” he said. “We discovered
that why some of them behave the way they behave to car owners is because the
pay they receive at the end of the month is little.”
“This
time around we want it to also come from a human angle where by the vendors
will be treated well so they can be happy doing their jobs,” he said.
The
Special Adviser said only competent operators will operate the Park and Pay
system in its second coming.
“We
are also doing an entire process of procuring the operators, making sure that
only those that are technically competent will be allowed to operate the
system.
“The
park and pay system in Nigeria is very necessary in our system because we need
to protect infrastructure and to remove negligence on the road. We are getting
experienced hands this time around”, Mr. Ogbuenyi said.
Necessary
modifications
To
ensure a wide acceptability for the revised policy, the Administration plans to
make some fundamental changes, including reviewing the parking charges.
“The
issue of fee is also being reviewed,” Mr. Ogbuenyi said. “We are also looking
at the timing because we discovered that in Nigeria we can’t do something
meaningful within 30 minutes. For instance, when you go to banks for one
transactions or the other, you spend at least an hour because of the queue.”
“More
so motorist were also complaining about the fee, they were opting for the least
amount which was leading to friction. Now there is a recommendation that the
minimum time should be one hour instead of 30 minutes so that motorist will not
have to buy any ticket or have their cars towed within an hour,” he added.
The
spokesperson said the ministry has learnt lessons from its first attempt at the
policy.
“We
have learnt a lot from the complaints and the various mistakes we made,” he
said. “You know before we just started without putting a whole lot of things in
place since nobody has done it before in Nigeria. Now we are making sure we
fine-tune the whole system.”
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