Runaway parking on sidewalks may be Maputo Council’s next target – Watch

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Runaway parking on sidewalks may be Maputo Council’s next target – Watch

2:55 CAT | 02 Jun 2020

Photo: Miramar

Maputo City Council has announced a tough stance on illegal parking on Maputo’s streets and boulevards, and warned that vehicles illegally parked will be clamped and towed away.

The Municipal Parking and Mobility Company pound will be the final destination of all and any vehicle parked irregularly in the city.

This warning received with a round of applause from pedestrians who are forced to walk in the road, so cavalier has been the take-over of sidewalks by the city’s vehicle owners.

Drivers argue that the Municipal Parking and Mobility Company itself does not have parking lots, but it does, however, demarcate parking spaces with paint. This raises the question of whether or not bad parking should be allowed. Our interviewees routinely point out that the Maputo designed by colonialists hardly provides the parking spaces needed today, when the City of Acacias does indeed have a great many more vehicles.

Xavier João is a street car ‘valet’ and feels threatened by the prospect of action against badly parked cars. The few parking places that the municipality has, charge fees beyond the reach of many people’s pockets, he says.

In some areas of Maputo, drivers would love to park in public parking lots, but are unable to do so because they do not exist. A perfect excuse to fill the sidewalks to within a few centimetres of front doors and shop windows and up to the very edge of the street – with vehicles sold at prices certainly not within the reach of everyone’s pockets,

Watch the video below.