Informal sector operators are seen reaping millions of naira from the largely unregulated and unorganised park and pay business in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, BusinessDay can reveal.
With its growth rate of 6-8 per cent, the United Nations (UN) estimates that the population of Lagos which is officially put at nine million by the National Population Commission (NPC) 2006 census exercise will rise to over 25 million in 2015. According to a UN-HABITAT report on “State of Urban Youth 2010/2011”, Lagos will be third largest mega city in 2015 behind Tokyo in Japan and Mumbai in India.
The huge population and its vehicular density of 224 vehicles per kilometre notwithstanding, the state runs with grossly inadequate public parking infrastructure, as a few existing are exclusive to companies which build them.
There is currently no major investment in public car parks either by the government or private investors, forcing car owners to park by the roads. This comes at a huge cost to the economy as over N11 billion is said to be lost monthly to resultant traffic gridlock in Lagos, compounded by deplorable state of inner city roads, a problem government has been unable to solve, especially within the metropolitan areas of the state.
With the absence of safe public parking facilities, unemployed youths are taking up the task of looking after vehicles parked by the roads at a fee ranging between N200 and N500 in what BusinessDay’s findings show generates millions of naira daily within the informal sector of the economy without tax. The unemployed are seen on many of the inner roads, events centres and around council secretariats always making room for car owners arriving at such centres, to park.
Many of the events centres, shopping malls, business premises and religious organisations in Lagos operate without car parking infrastructure, and where available, they are barely enough to take the high number of vehicles arriving at these places.
This leaves car owners with the option of parking on streets next to such centres where the unemployed take control and scoop money from the owners.
Although a general problem in the state, the practice is, however, more pronounced in areas hitherto designated residential but now taken over by increasing commercial and business activities such as Surulere, Lagos Island, Ikeja, Apapa, Amuwo-Odofin among others. The bargain is that the car owner is given a space to park, and upon returning to take the car, he/she pays a negotiated amount of money.
BusinessDay findings also reveal that in the mainland areas of the state, council officials are connected to the arrangement, giving it a semblance of legitimacy by converting council secretariats to ‘park and pay’ with the money realised exchanging hands between officials and the “boys” engaged as toll collectors. An official of Mainland local government preferring anonymity confirmed the practice to BusinessDay, but tagged it a “revenue drive”.
In Lagos Island, the situation is a mixture of coercion and harassment of car owners, and it is fraught with all sorts of hazards. At the root of it is inadequate parking space. Amidst the informal arrangement, the collectors rake in millions of naira operating in the name of any government agencies they desire. No questions are asked for fear of vehicles being towed to unknown destinations.
On Broad Street and the outer Marina in Lagos Island, car owners are charged between N300 and N400 to park. Even at this, the cars are parked at the owners’ risk, meaning that in the event of theft, the owners bear the burden, as the operators are faceless and the “park and pay” unregulated by the government.
Oluseyi Coker, the permanent secretary in Lagos State Ministry of Transportation would not take his call when contacted or reply to text sent to his cell phone seeking government’s explanations on how the park and pay business is operated in the state.
While opportunity exists for investment in parking infrastructure in the state, especially in the island, it seems no investor is taking up the challenge, even as the government appears uninterested in organising the current operations by informal sector players.
An analyst, Olayemi Shonubi, says it would not be expensive to construct a stand-alone structure devoted to parking. Shonubi, a quantity surveyor and chief executive officer of DwabCostprudence Company, a firm of quantity surveyors said the costs implication of constructing multi-floor parking infrastructure is cheaper in comparison to office development, as most of the high cost elements/finishing required for a good functional office such as floor tiles/marble, air-conditioning, ceilings, among others are not needed.
Stressing the importance of a multi-floor parking infrastructure, Shonubi explains that “with the current redevelopment of Lagos Island CBD which is the centre of commerce in Lagos, and in fact for the entire West Coast of Africa, it is expected that there would be a corresponding increase in human as well as vehicular traffic to this part of Lagos.
Furthermore the various steps taken by the state government to develop the Marina as a leisure/relaxation spot cannot but generate unending traffic.”
JOSHUA BASSEY
