Nairobi Senator Sakaja Johnson has come to the rescue of city motorists after Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) expanded parking fee bracket into the estates.
NMS, in association with City Hall, had in June moved to add more Nairobi estates eligible for parking fee charges in an attempt to increase its revenues.
In a statement on Tuesday, August 31, Sakaja termed the move as punitive noting that the residents were already being taxed heavily in other areas.
The Senator argued that the charges were unnecessary since Nairobi County had received an increment in revenue allocation from the National Government.
"The people of Nairobi are not cash cows. Don’t charge Nairobians parking fees in estates. We have given you enough resources to do perform your work.
"From Ksh15 billion in 2017, we negotiated it up to Ksh19 billion this year in the Senate. On top of this, there’s what you’re already collecting. Our people are already hard-pressed and over taxed. Wacheni tamaa. (stop greed)," stated Sakaja.
He also noted that when recess ends in two weeks time, the Senate will summon the NMS team and their Nairobi City County Government (NCCG) counterparts to answer to the same.
"We will summon NMS and NCCG to Senate in the next two weeks after recess to revoke this move," he added.
NMS and City Hall were looking to gazette new parking areas in what the team termed as a move to ensure it meets its revenue targets of Ksh19 billion.
In the financial year that ended in June 2020, revenue from parking had only totalled Ksh1.5 billion against a target of Ksh2.8 billion.
“We plan to gazette more parking areas and introduce zonal charging of the parking bays to increase revenue from parking fees,” stated Nairobi Finance and Economic Planning CEC Allan Igambi.
This year, the target from parking fee stands at Ksh3.2 billion.
