Parking fines at night along Visaka Road, Bambalapitiya

My experiences with parking fines imposed by the Colombo Municipal Council should be recorded for the sake of understanding the plight of the common man in a corrupt Third World country.

To start with, the Colombo Municipality, although imposing heavy rates on citizens, provides only very primitive services to these same citizens, who are subjected to regular power cuts, water cuts, terrible traffic jams, inconsistent garbage collection (with collectors operating like a mafia and regularly demanding money for everything) and poor maintenance all-around. 

The second, but equally important, issue is that charges such as parking fees are applicable only to ordinary citizens. Politicians, VIPs, Police officers and members of the Armed Forces do not have to pay these sums of money as they have official vehicles and State-paid drivers serving them around the clock. This applies even when they are not on official work, thus making a mockery of the system. This exemption of the law applies even to the wives and children of these officials, who routinely use these ‘official’ vehicles.

To relate my story, I parked my vehicle down Visaka Road, Bambalapitiya at about 7.15 p.m. on Saturday. This is a relatively quiet road and at the time there were only two other vehicles parked nearby. When I returned about 30 minutes later there was a parking ticket stuck on my car’s window declaring that I had been fined Rs. 100. In the dark I could hardly read the small text on the ticket. Several times in the recent past, including about one week ago, I had parked here and faced absolutely no issue. Out of the blue, with no notice, the municipality has started collecting parking fines even on a Saturday night.

I was surprised that, at that time of the night and at a location where there was hardly any traffic, our otherwise underperforming municipality was busy imposing parking fines on citizens. While I was standing around confused by the meaninglessness of this bureaucracy, a few people gathered there and commenced roundly condemning the powers that be. One of them, who identified himself as hailing from Makandura (same as the famous Madush), said that many drivers had faced this problem and guided me to a pay booth down Visaka Road. He said some of the drivers were utterly clueless about the payment procedure, and even attempted to force their driver’s licences into the machine.

Those gathered there attempted to help me pay the fine of Rs. 100 but the machine kept rejecting the currency note. According to them, this is a common occurrence as the machine is often defective and accepts only very crisp notes. Many a driver has had his currency notes rejected by these substandard machines. 

I was alarmed, as even a day’s delay results in the fine increasing significantly. The next day was Sunday and the coming Monday was also a public holiday. Luckily, another person who stopped there had a Rs. 100 note which was accepted by the machine. The receipt read 7.47 p.m. which meant I was parked there for perhaps less than half an hour.

I understand that parking is at a premium in a big city and it is perfectly alright to charge a parking fee. But Colombo is not New York or London. In a quiet, poorly-lit lane, at 7.00 p.m. on a Saturday to enforce such a drastic collection regime and compound it with a defective machine which is not user-friendly is mercenarily on the part of a failed bureaucracy and surely an unjust act. 

The reactions of passers-by, if anything, were reflective of the public resentment at this high-handed attitude of the powerful.

R. Perera