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awarded to Easipark, a joint venture company bet-ween council and EasiHold of South Africa.
He said this last week as council em-ployees demanded an investigation in-to the deal, claiming no revenue was coming to council.
A pressure group added its voice to the saga, saying motorists should boycott paying the parking fees until a wholly indigenous firm gets the tender.
Town clerk Dr Tendai Mahachi has said dividends are shared at the end of the year and members of the public have queried how this arrangement works with a cash business.
Youths last week demonstrated aga-inst the deal, questioning why the City of Harare had to engage South Afri-cans to manage parking.
Mr Masunda has, instead, suggested that other job opportunities for the youths be sought.
“What has been done cannot be undone.
“We need to create employment opportunities for the unsustainably large number of young people who need jobs,” he said.
He said the entry of Easipark affe-cted “certain groups which have been thriving on chaos” and their changed circumstances needed to be address-ed.
He said organisers of the demonstration should “be looking at resuscitating poorly performing State-own-ed companies.
“They should start with parastatals and companies such as Cairns, Astra, Tractive Power and Hwange Colliery in which the State is the largest single shareholder, in terms of empowering the youth, women and war veterans.”
He said this in an interview last week, a few days after youth empowerment group, Upfumi Kuvadiki, gave council a 14-day ultimatum to withdraw the parking management deal.
The group has threatened to institute “unspecified civil action” if the demands are not met.
Harare Municipal Workers Union chairman Mr Cosmos Bungu weighed in saying the Easipark deal needs urgent attention “since no revenue is accruing to the city and the minority shareholder (EasiHold) runs the show and is allegedly the sole signatory to the financial account”.
Mr Bungu said a proper evaluation of the infrastructure and parking space used by the joint venture company was not done and the city could be losing huge sums of money.
“The city should be getting US$50 000 on a daily basis. The loss of revenue must be addressed immediately,” he said.
His comments are contained in a letter to town clerk Dr Tendai Mahachi.
Upfumi Kuvadiki demanded that council should, “amend its by-laws to suit the current legal dispensation, to wit, embracing the tenets of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act”.
The group demanded the immediate revocation of the tender awarded to Easipark.
About 400 people signed the petition.
The youth organisation has also demanded a “comprehensive suspension of payments to Easipark by motorists with immediate effect until an indigenous company is contracted”.
They also want Easipark employees to stop reporting for duty “pending re-employment by a people-oriented indigenous company”.
Dr Mahachi has defended the venture saying the city had looked for a partner with expertise and experience.
He said council was the indigenous partner in the deal.
The town clerk said the city would get 60 percent profit at the end of the year while EasiHold gets 40 percent.
The joint venture will subsist for five years after which the city assumes full ownership.
A survey of the parking lots, parkades and on-street parking facilities shows slight improvements from the situation before July last year when Easipark moved in.
However, booms are yet to be installed at parking lots where only shelter for the parking marshals has been provided.
On the streets parking meters are under installation while toilets at the Julius Nyerere Parkade are now functional.
The toilets at the Park Lane parking Lot are still not working.
Dr Mahachi chairs the Easipark management team, which comprises Mr Richard Chigerwe from city health, Mr Alois Masepe (business development unit) and Mr Pegias Dube representing EasiHold.
The whole deal has raised a stink about how affairs at Town House are managed.
People have questioned why no one from treasury is on the management team and why cash dividends are only shared at year-end.
The money is supposed to be banked daily.
At Rufaro Marketing, another city business venture, the city treasurer sits on the board and advises on financial matters.
There are also questions why the city had to go all the way to South Africa to study parking and then enlist services of a private firm from that country.
In 2009, four city officials went to South Africa – using three vehicles – to study the parking management in at least two cities.
Dr Mahachi led the delegation.