Reports of Brisbane residents left waiting months for parking permits that turned out to be incorrect, including at least one with a validity of just one day, has prompted calls for a council contractor to be sacked.
On June 30, independent councillor Nicole Johnston contacted Fairfax Media and said residents whose parking permits expired that financial year had only just received their renewal forms for 2017-18, while residents who applied six to eight weeks ago were still waiting for their new permits.
"Council is forcing local residents to pay for parking in their street yet failing to issue the permits in a timely way," she said.
According to the council's website, residential parking permits were available for anyone who lived in a residential parking permit area or traffic area, such as near shops, universities, hospitals and sporting and entertainment facility.
On July 20, Cr Johnson showed Fairfax Media an email she sent to council chief executive Colin Jensen informing him she continued to receive permit complaints and had logged jobs with the council.
In an email, Cr Johnston said a Fairfield resident had applied for and paid for the permit on May 15, but never received the permit.
"Council manages to issue rates notices four times a year but can't issue an annual parking renewal permit? It's a rip-off for a poor service," the email said.
"Now she has been sent a renewal for a permit she never received in the first place and is quite rightly querying why she should pay again for a service she did not receive in the first place.
"How many times do we have to ask for assistance for Brisbane ratepayers before this council will act?"
On August 2, Cr Johnston again contacted Mr Jensen via email, this time to show him permits residents received with incorrect dates on them. She said an Annerley resident had applied for a permit in April, only to receive their permit on August 1 with the wrong dates.
The permit, sighted by Fairfax Media, showed the permit was valid for only one day, from June 30, 2018 to June 30, 2018.
Cr Johnston said in her email she presumed the council was paying a contractor a lot of money for a very poor service.
"How long are you and senior council officers going to ignore me and the genuine concerns I have raised for Brisbane ratepayers?" she wrote.
At Tuesday's council meeting Cr Johnston asked Lord Mayor Graham Quirk during question time about the parking permit "stuff-up".
"Lord Mayor, is it the council staff or our paid contractors that have so badly stuffed up our parking permit system and what are you going to do to fix the problem?" she said.
Cr Quirk said the council's parking permits were handled by a company called Tenix.
"I can tell you the administration is actively looking at the circumstances pertaining to Tenix and clearly if those circumstances that you've outlined are correct that's not acceptable," he said.
Cr Johnston interrupted Cr Quirk to tell him to "sack them", but Cr Quirk continued and said if Tenix was not meeting the requirements of its contract there would be consequences.
"We need to ensure that ratepayers are afforded the proper value for money and that means that contractors have to fulfil the terms of their contract," he said.
A council spokesman said Tenix had made an error when distributing a small number of renewed parking permits this financial year.
"Those parking permits displayed the same start and end date for the permit," the spokesman said.
"Less than 140 individuals were impacted and Tenix has contacted these individuals and reprinted those permits involved."
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