Park And Pay Woes

Motorists in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, lament what they call the exploitative nature of the park-and-pay operation within the city 

The sight of clamped vehicle tyres on almost every busy street of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory; the attendant violent conduct of operators of the Park and Pay Services and their shouting matches with motorists have become common sights every working day in the city. The FCT administration had early last year introduced the Park and Pay Service as a revenue generation venture and also, as it explained, a measure to bring order to vehicle parking.

In the arrangement, done on a public-private partnership, PPP, basis, specific areas of the city were concessioned to different companies to manage. Integrated Parking Services and Platinum Parking Management Services were the first two companies licensed in February 2012 to effect the service. Another company, Automaten Technik Baumann was approved later.

Specific areas were concessioned to each operator. The uniformed Park and Pay personnel can be seen manning designated parking spaces in busy areas like Wuse 2, Maitaima, Asokoro, Garki and the Central Area. The personnel issue receipts for the fixed fee per parking. The fees range from N50 for a 30-minute parking to N850 for 12 hours.

The operators were understood to have instructed their staff to remove the plate numbers of motorists who refused to pay or have exceeded the number of minutes or hours they paid for, hence it is not unusual to see many motorists going around Abuja without plate numbers. As this magazine’s findings revealed, some motorists, on discovering that their plate numbers had been removed, simply drove off and refused for weeks to go to the operator’s office to pay the N5000 fine and retrieve their plate numbers. But partly because this measure was seen not to be too effective, the operators came up with the even more debilitating and more effective clamping of tyres to force motorists to pay fines immediately.

About a year after the introduction of the scheme, most motorists in Abuja continue to complain about the approach of the operators to the job. Most motorists complain that the staff of the Park & Pay companies are most times nowhere to be found when they (the motorists) are parking, but that they always come back to see their vehicle tyres clamped. Some have described the scheme as a fraud with some operators designating the spaces in front of their offices as park and pay areas.

Indeed, the palpable anger, frustrations and pains of Abuja residents over the operations of the Park & Pay services can best be appreciated with a visit to the office of the operators, as this magazine did recently to the Wuse 11 office of Integrated Parking Service. The expansive premises of the operator, who occupied the 2nd floor of a three-story building were littered with cars of alleged defaulters. Motorists were seen either standing or leaning on the wall waiting for the field staff or the company’s senior officials to attend to their complaints.

A woman, who declined to give her names, described her experience as harrowing. She said she had gone inside a bank believing she had parked properly. While parking, she didn’t, she claimed, see any of the officials of the Park and Pay Services. When she was coming out of the bank, an unbelievable violent scene assailed her sight. She could not fathom what the problem was until she moved nearer and discovered that two men just finished exchanging blows. She was told that as officials of the Park and Pay Services company were clamping her car, a man who saw her when she was parking protested that the officials were not around when she was parking and it would be wrong to clamp her car. This led to an argument during which voices and fingers were raised. Despite this, the company insisted she must pay the N5,000 fine before her car can be released. She paid, though she was not convinced she committed any offence.

Barrister Austin Akpangbo also narrated his experience. “When I was parking along Chesbury Hotel yesterday, there was no notice and no Park and Pay officials around. I saw other cars there when I parked. By the time I came out, my plate number had been removed. Where they removed my plate number, there was nothing to indicate that one should not park there. That is where we have been parking anyway,” he told this magazine.

He also complained that even retrieving his plate number after paying the fine was not easy. The legal practitioner told this magazine he tried unsuccessfully for two days to retrieve the plate. “Of course, it wasn’t convenient for me to come here either yesterday or today, but I just have to come. They have since been pushing me around and the operation manager is so full of himself that he asked them to push me out of the office. They dragged me by my clothes and a tie on the order of their Operation Manager,” Akpamgbo said.

Another woman who simply identified herself as Kate also explained her predicament to this magazine. According to her, her car was clamped and the number plate removed while she was on queue to buy fuel at the Utako area of Abuja. “They left a number on my car which I called. I was told to come to their office at Wuse. In their office, they insisted I must pay the N5,000.00. The person I met was so arrogant,” she fumed.

Some months ago, the operators introduced a pre-paid card which entitles motorists to park for about 12 hours for N1000. A motorist is expected to attach the card to his car after parking. But even then, there have been complaints as the different operators will not accept the card of another for parking at areas under their control. One operator argues it cannot accept the card of another in the area under its control because it has no means of reconciling the accounts.

With complaints of extortion and high-handedness increasing, the Consumer Protection Council, CPC, vowed to meet the FCT administration to discuss ways of relief..“Some motorists complain that after buying the park and pay recharge card from an operator, they still find it difficult to park in any of the areas manned by another operator without being asked to pay, failure of which they will have their cars clamped”, Ify Umenyi, Director General, CPC, told journalists in Abuja last week.

A top official of one of the operators told this magazine a lot of challenges are being experienced because people who were used to free parking now suddenly find themselves being asked to pay for what used to be free. He attributed most of the complaints against the operators to the fact that the initiative is a new one. This magazine gathered that the idea of managed parking services was initiated as as far back as 2003 to sanitise vehicular traffic in Abuja, create employment and generate revenue for the FCT. “We advertised both in the electronic and print media and even shared leaflets in the zones we control,” he said in response to the complaints that the operators did not create enough awareness before they began their operations. “Initially we were removing number plates because people were damaging our clampers. What we were doing that time was that we clamp you and simultaneously we remove your number plate. After you have paid, we unclamp you and return your plates number,” he added.

A customer care personnel in one of the companies dismissed complaints of excesses by the staff.  He said the field workers are fired to be dedicated to the job with a five per cent commission from the fines paid on any clamped car. “After seven days, if you do not collect your number plate, you pay a demurrage of N1000 per day,” she added. The lure of the commission is identified as responsible for the excesses of the staff of the Pay and Park operators who usually go around with heavily built bouncers.

—Sola-Adeola Folorunsho