Car guards in Tzaneen face bleak future

The future of car guards in the Tzaneen Central Business District looks bleak.

This after the Greater Tzaneen Municipality appointed a private company to run the parking meter system in town.

Some of the guards, who have been keeping watch over cars and pointing out vacant parking spaces for tips from motorists for over four years, say they were never consulted about the new parking system.

They say the company contracted to run the system did not consider them when employing traffic wardens to assist motorists.

“We were surprised when the company installed parking meters and introduced uniformed traffic wardens to replace us,” said a concerned guard on condition of anonymity for fear of victimization.

He said car guarding has become almost a job. He works six days and sometimes seven days a week and makes between R80 and R100 a day from tips of about R2,  R3, R4,  R5 and R 10 a time.

“I don’t know how I am going to support my family, now that we have been told to stop working on the street,” said a visibly disturbed car guard.

Meanwhile, motorists and business people expressed mixed feelings about the new parking meter system.

Some motorists say the new system is a strategy by the municipality to milk them of their hard earned money, while other welcomed it saying its better than relying on untrained car guards.

They say that some of the car guards are rude to motorists whilst other say they scratch their cars if they don’t have money to give them for watching their cars.

Business people are concerned about the selling of monthly parking space in front of their businesses saying it would adversely affect their businesses. They also complain that they were never consulted about the new system.

Municipal spokesperson, Neville Ndlala said a tender for the running of the parking meter system was advertised in the local and national newspaper in 2012 and the municipality only appointed the winning bidder BCIT this year.

He said the company recruited traffic wardens from various wards of the municipality with the assistance of councillors.

He dismissed as untrue the claims by car guards that they were not considered saying they were welcome to apply.

He said from the beginning of October motorists are paying for parking spaces in the CBD. They buy smartcards, which are currently available at municipal offices in Agatha Street, Hlulani Communications next to Captain Derego, 4u Cellular and Electronic next to Roots Butchery and Computer and All next to Old Mutual behind FNB.

He said negotiations with other outlets to sell the smart cards are ongoing.

The Manager for Law Enforcement at the municipality, Johannes Malatji says there are currently 25 meters installed and more are still to be installed.

He said the meters have been installed in two streets only namely: Danie Joubert and Morgan and two streets have 135 parking spaces between them. Malatji said that it will cost R5 an hour to park and smart cards will cost R20.

There will traffic wardens appointed and trained by BCIT assist motorists with the meters as well as to monitor the parking area and ensure compliance with the new system.

He added that the traffic wardens have powers to issue traffic fines for traffic violation and the fine will be start at R150.

The manager of BCIT, Maite Sebolagi referred all media inquiries to the municipality.