Joshua Nahamya
03 January 2024
The Mbarara City Council has extended the street parking contract to Wood Fix Company Ltd to prepare for digital street parking.
Wood Fix Company Ltd was contracted in 2016 to manage and Collect Street parking fees totaling Shs 9.2 mln per the agreement. However, in 2020, the town clerk and his technocrats reduced the amount to Shs 5 mln without the council’s recommendation.
During the extraordinary council meeting held on Tuesday, Priscah Murongo, the deputy mayor of Mbarara city confirmed that the contract expired on 08th December 2023 thus appealing to the city councilors to extend the street parking contract as they prepare to study the digital method to manage street parking.
“Considering the many petitions at hand, to mark and demarcate all parking lots, handle requests from different stakeholders and have proper terms of reference for the contract, the committee recommends that wood fix contractor for street parking tender be extended for a period of three months for the system to be fully digitalised” she explained
“The contractor had requested for 6 months, but we said let us push it for three months as we push for the contract’s committee as per the local governments (amendment) act, 2006”.
The deputy mayor said that Mbarara city council also has an expired contracts committee thus calling for the councillors to add the contractor more months preparing for the digital street parking system.
“As we talk now, we don’t have a contract’s committee, we submitted the names to the ministry of local government but we have not yet received the feedback”
Ben Patrick Twahirwa, Workers’ Councilor for Mbarara City said, “I wonder whether they will be able to finish in time to make the study about the new technology”.
“I would have loved to see their request for the contract extension being documented rather than just them saying simply three months they should be specific.” Twahirwa said
John Kavigi, the Male Youth city councillor also said “the time they are requesting is only meant for digitising which means after that exercise still they will ask for more time for advertising which will affect the revenue plans”.
“Instead of coming back after three months and finding unfinished work, let’s give them 6 months to complete in time,” Kavigi said
However, Betty Tigefera representing Mbarara City South A, retaliated that the Mbarara city council should not risk extending Wood Fix Company Ltd’s contract claiming that they are defaulters and have not been respecting the agreement.
“The contract they had was based on the municipal council now it’s a city council so should we leave them and they keep stealing all our money for the next six months? I am proposing that before we add them more six months, lets first sit and we calculate how much money they going to pay us” Tigefera said
Through the speaker, Bonny Tashobya, councilors anonymously extended the contract period for the wood fix company to 6 months to allow the proper planning to advance to digital street parking.
“Members now that we don’t have the contract’s committee, and the fact that we haven’t done due diligence on the ground to know how the digital system will be working, let us give them six months so that they can prepare because as council we cannot manage,” Tashobya said
He said that as a council they cannot manage to collect street parking fees thus asking the city town clerk to gazette the spaces where the company is supposed to be collecting fees meanwhile as they wait for the digital system to take course.
“What matters is to know the gazetted areas for street parking because we need to give our people some leverage as they prepare to cooperate with the new system,” Tashobya said
Lillian Kobusingye, the deputy town clerk, appealed to the councilors to task the contractor to pay in advance to avoid issues of default.
“You can maybe put a condition that let the tenderer pay two months in advance until the six months elapse,” she said adding that, a good thing the 6 months are going to elapse with the financial year so that by the beginning of the next financial year you can get another contractor to take on the digital system” Kobusingye explained
According to the deputy town clerk, automation of street parking will address unfairness, and irregularities, creating a city order, and proper management of parking fees to enhance revenue performance.
