Muizz pledges to waive off 'unfair' parking fines

Opposition PPM-PNC presidential candidate Dr Mohamed Muizz on Wednesday vowed to waive all parking fines, saying that President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih's government is imposing the fines unfairly.

Muizz, who arrived in Sh. Funadhoo Wednesday evening as part of his ongoing visit to the islands of Shaviyani atoll to campaign for the September 9 presidential election, criticised the government's decision to impose parking fines.

"This fine for parking stickers is not fair at all. It is not fair. We are coming to do a fair and just government. So, I will hopefully forgive all the parking fines," he said.

The reason Muizz believes the fines are unfair is that the government has not given parking spaces before banning parking in certain areas. The government did not give the city council the opportunity to build parking spaces, the sitting mayor of Male said.

"In this outgoing government, an electoral promise is not to impose fines without showing parking spaces. But if this government did not allow me to build a parking space, or a building. We have to park on the road, especially the youth," Muizz said.  

"Every young person who gets a sticker has thousands of such fines to pay”.

Speaking further on the parking issue, Muizz said the city council had planned to build parking buildings at six places in the city. However, the government did not allow it to be done and if he comes to power, he will build parking buildings to resolve the parking problem, he said.

"We're going to find a permanent solution to this. We'll stop the begging for a garage city. Tackling the nonsense policy adopted by the Transport Ministry, we will permanently resolve what needs to be done," Muizz said.

"The parking buildings will have enough space for all taxis, private cars [and] bicycles.”