IF you think the City of Harare’s parking fees are very high and the capital is ripping off motorists, then spare a thought for those who park their cars in Paris.
The French capital, dubbed the City of Love, has just held a referendum which will see parking fees, especially for Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), skyrocketing.
An SUV is like the US$90 000 Mercedes Benz GLE 350d which DJ Fantan received, as a present, from businessman Wicknell Chivayo, last week.
The Paris referendum was closely followed by authorities in various capitals around the world and it’s now expected many will try to adopt the same model in the coming months.
On Sunday, Parisians voted to TRIPLE the parking costs for SUVs as the city aims to tackle air pollution and climate breakdown by targeting rich drivers in heavy and large cars.
The provisional results show that 54.6% voted in favour of special parking fees for SUVs.
However, the turnout — at about 5.7% of Paris’s registered voters — was lower than green campaigners had hoped for.
The proposal, which was backed by the majority of those who took part in the poll, is to increase the price of parking passes for cars weighing more than 1.6 tonnes from outside the city.
The cost to park SUVs in Paris’s central districts is set to soar to US$19 per hour for the first two hours, compared to US$6.30 per hour for smaller cars.
After that, parking will become increasingly punitive.
An eight-hour stay with an SUV will cost about U$340.
“Parisians have made a clear choice … other cities will follow,” said Paris Mayor, Anne Hidalgo.
What this means is that if the City of Harare adopted similar punitive measures, it would mean that someone like DJ Fantan would need about US$340 a day, just for parking fees, if he worked in central Harare.
For a 22-day working month, he would require about US$6 868 in parking fees alone.