TRANSPORT-ZIMBABWE: Your Money And Your Life

• by Ignatius Banda (bulawayo)
• Monday, March 02, 2009
• Inter Press Service

The gears churn, and smoke fills the interior of the vehicle, sending passengers into a coughing frenzy. Desmond Hikwa flays his arms to clear the smoke hissing through the dash board without slackening speed.

'I have been driving on these roads for more than ten years now,' Hikwa says proudly, steering his 16-seater around the crater-sized potholes that fill Bulawayo roads.

In Bulawayo, where the state-owned Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) has virtually disappeared from the streets, Hikwa has become one of many operators who fill the need for public transport with 16-seater vehicles known as kombis, albeit with passengers complaining of poor or no public relations skills.

'We have to contend with very bad roads and of course police officers who always demand bribes even when our papers are in order,' Hikwa told IPS.

Behind him, a quarrel breaks out between a passenger and the tout.

'I am about to get off, just give me my change. I don't want any stories. Asiyo problem yami ukuthi ngibhadale ngemali yamanye amazwe. (It's not my problem that I paid using foreign currency)' fumes the passenger in isiNdebele.

'Manje mina ufuna ngiyiththathe ngaphi? (Where will i get change?)' the tout replies. 'I have already told you I will give you when I have it,' the tout replies.

'Where are we expected to get change for that kind of money?' Hikwa demands, and the passenger falls silent.

The tout's pocket of fares is filled with an assortment of dirty banknotes - South African Rands, Botswana Pula and U.S. dollars - that have become the complicated daily currency in Zimbabwe.

Making change has become a headache for public transport operators, who longer accept Zim dollars - hardly anyone does in a country that boasts world record inflation.

Local historians believe Bulawayo pioneered the use of the 16-seater vehicles known as kombis after locals working in neighbouring South Africa repatriated the vehicles in the early 1990s to set up a lucrative public transport sector.

The government deregulated the transport sector to allow private operators in the early 1990s, when under the guidance of the World Bank the country introduced economic reforms that sharply reduced public spending.

Industry officials and members of the public say that with the liberalisation of the transport sector came chaos on the roads as touts and drivers did away with the care and courtesy commuters had been accustomed to since the country's early independence years.

But Temba Ncube of the kombi-owners assocation the Bulawayo Public Transport Association (BUPTA) says standards only began deteriorating at the onset of the country's recession more than a decade ago when operators failed to source spare parts for their aging vehicles.

'As you have seen, most of these vehicles are not roadworthy as we cannot afford to service them because of the prohibitive costs involved,' Ncube told IPS.

'But this has not stopped us from plying the whole of Bulawayo, as commuters would have no other means to travel as the state-owned buses are no longer available,' he added.

According to BUPTA statistics, over a thousand kombis were plying routes scattered around Bulawayo's low and high density suburbs in 2006, but Ncube says the numbers have been depleted by failure by operators to keep the vehicles in good shape.

Operators struggle to keep vehicles on the road, with drivers often resorting to paying hefty bribes to keep their vehicles from being seized by the Vehicle Inspection Department.

'That is why there is a lot corruption with traffic police taking bribes so that these vehicles are not impounded,' Ncube said.

So the vehicles stay on the roads, but service has deteriorated immensely.

'We have taken more than enough insults and abuse from these chaps,' Simon Bhebhe, a regular passenger told IPS.

'They have no respect for elders and the language they use is not the type they would use on their own parents,' complains Bhebhe.

In January 2009, police launched a countrywide crackdown on touts, accusing them of harassing customers and charging fares in foreign currency, but for 24-four year old Zenzele Chuma, a tout who says he grew up in these streets after he dropped out from school, the police are fighting a losing battle.

'It is the passengers themselves who tend to stereotype us,' says Chuma, who works as a tout with Desmond Hikwa.

'It is always difficult working with the public. We are called rude only because we refuse to take the insults from the passengers lying down. They say we are not educated when they complain about our behaviour, and other passengers actually want to bring their offices in our vehicles where they want to boss us around,' Chuma defended.

'See, we are still around,' he said as he continued to call out to potential passengers right in the heart of the city's busy central business district.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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