The new Zupco buses should have been deployed for festive season
The economic hardships in this country showed during the festive season. It is the norm that people make the great trek back to the rural areas to be with families and enjoy festivities together.
The first issue to dampen the mood is the prospect of urbanites bringing the dreaded Covid-19 to the rural folk. Cases of the highlyinfectious disease have been on the rise lately with deaths also spiking. Though the medical fraternity are saying the new variant is not as potent as the Delta variant before it, people have been seen to struggle with the Covid-19, especially those who have underlying conditions and those who have not been vaccinated. The mere prospect of taking the Omicron to rural communities is in itself a mood damper.
The silver lining is that since the advent of the pandemic, however, health professionals have learnt a lot and information has been disseminated on various platforms to educate the nation. At least people know how to handle Covid-19 cases and the affected are knowledgeable about isolation and other Covid protocols.
While Mbare Musika terminus was a hive of activity as people travelled to their rural areas, the bus fares were out of this world. Long distance buses were cashing in on the travellers by charging double the usual fare. Travellers had to make quick decisions, to try hitchhiking, to return home or to use all the money for travel and bring the old folk nothing, which is quite embarrassing after a whole year of toiling in the city.
The economy has been bad generally and the local currency is shunned by most businesses because it has been losing value against the US dollar. Most people are engaged in some informal activity of sorts to raise the US dollar in an economy that was allowed to redollarise on the back of Covid-19. This has resulted in people trying every trick in the book to get hold of foreign currency, hence the transport operators’ extortionist tendencies. They might argue that fuel is scarce and is sold in foreign currency, but then does that stretch the distance to warrant a 100% fare hike?
While bus operators have a body that lobbies the Transport ministry and other relevant stakeholders, who speaks on behalf of
travellers when they hold the shorter end of the stick?
The government has been proudly displaying Zupco buses they brought in recently. Why are these buses not on the road to ferry people? Is it red tape, or are they going to release them towards elections to be used as a campaign tool?
There is a video that showed a very long convoy of new buses making their way into Harare recently and somebody was using that to campaign for Zanu PF, judging by the accompanying commentary, but where are the buses now when the citizens need them?
It is mostly the private players who hike fares just to make a killing during the holidays, but if government avails a cheaper and fair option for travellers, the extortionist will be forced to reduce fares. Why allow them to punish travellers when Zupco bays are full of new buses?
If the buses are meant to make life easier for us, let us use them and give real competition to private players.
The festive season is not time to be miserable, but travellers were between a rock and a hard place.
Even access to the terminus was unbearable with some people being dropped off around Rufaro Stadium and engaging the services of cart-pushers to manoeuvre to the bus terminus. Can’t City of Harare do something to decongest the terminus? Why are people erecting tuckshops that eat into the road and parking spaces and nobody seems to bother? We can't have every available spot for selling something. When roads are impassable, drivers become impatient and the result is chaos.
Pained by the journey home Harare