Nicisms

As an entrepreneur and business owner it’s imperative for me to grow my business. To grow my business I need staff and in South Africa that generally implies that staff drive to work and park somewhere.

I’m going to cut right through the warm and lovely smelling bread that is Cape Town municipal governance. Everyone loves them, they do a great job and have maintained a high standard. I must, however, protest.

I have worked out that when Motribe reaches ten staff members, our new offices on Bree Street in Cape Town CBD will force me to pay a parking cost of more than R10 000 for my staff. Yes. You read that correctly, more than R10 000 for my staff to park at their place of work and earn a living.

Let me explain that cost:

It costs R4.50 per 30 minutes to park on the street in CT CBD. That’s R9 per hour. At an average of 8 hours per day that equates to R72 per day per employee.
5 days a week for 4 weeks = 20 days per month that I will have to pay for parking.

20 days x R72 = R1440 per month per employee.
10 employees x R1440 = R14 400.

R14 440 is more on parking than I will pay for rent. That is a joke.

The alternative involves me sourcing parking spaces for my employees. These range from R850 to R1000 per space per month. So at a best case scenario I’m paying R8500 per month for ten employees to park in a parking lot a few blocks away from my office.

Let me sum up my feelings: I am being punished by the Cape Town government for growing my business. I am upset by this and I am not the only person who runs a business in Cape Town who feels this way.

I have a proposed solution that makes sense in my head, help me break it and come up with a better one.

I propose that businesses with fewer than, let’s say, ten employees are given a parking-break of 75%. Give me and my employees 75% off our street parking near our office.

That would be a saving of R10 800 per month for a business of ten people. Instead of paying R14 400 I would be paying R3600.

As the size of my business increases you can start to charge me more and lean on my business as I generate more revenue. When the business grows to 20 employees then give me 50% off, 25 employees and 25% off and above 30 employees make me pay full price and force me to move out to a building with parking. But don’t punish me when I’m just starting out. It hurts.

For the city of Cape Town this is a good idea because Motribe will be bringing a steady and stable flow of paying parking customers to the streets. Even if we are paying %25 of the cost we are there every day and those parking spots are filled and generating more income.

Over and above this little perk for the city they should consider that small businesses are good for business. The restaurants in and around my office will now have ten more customers, as a company we are creating employment, paying our rates on time and helping the city to do better in general.

Parking costs are making it very difficult for me to want to grow my business and stay in the hub of activity commonly known as a city’s CBD.

I hope someone is listening.

nharalambous@gmail.com