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Natasha Kokai and Charmaine Brown
Harare City Council and the Greater Harare Association of Commuter Operators (GHACO) are working on a policy to ensure the safety of passengers within the city.

Speaking during a Legal Resources Foundation policy dialogue on reform towards safer public spaces in Harare yesterday, the city’s environment management committee chairperson, Ms Kudzai Kadzombe, said they were discussing issues to do with harassment of passengers by touts at pick-up points around the city and impediment of their free movement, which is critical for their vision of attaining world class city status by 2025.

Ms Kadzombe said they wanted to protect women and children who are soft targets for touts.

“The transport policy is one of the major goals of attaining a world class city status by 2025 through ensuring that issues of road safety are put in place by enforcing strict laws,” she said.

“Touting in terms of by-laws is illegal. We cannot enforce it because we do not have arresting powers as a council, so we work hand-in-hand with ZRP because they have the powers to arrest people.

“Touts are a hazard especially to women and children. Our by-laws only have provisions for conductors and drivers, but not for touts. We do not have room for touting in our values as a city.”

Ms Kadzombe said the City of Harare would refurbish the bus terminuses so that the city becomes clean.

“We are going to rehabilitate these terminuses. We have got companies that are coming in to build world class bus terminuses for our residents,” she said. “Making sure that our infrastructure is developed is what we can do on our own.”

GHACO secretary-general Mr Ngoni Katsvairo said there was need for a code of  conductor for commuter omnibus crews to safeguard passengers.

“There is need to ensure that council should have arresting powers to guarantee the rights of passengers,” he said. “Council should also take control of ranks in the central business district to prevent touts from operating there.”

Since the beginning of the year, 4 599 touts have been arrested by the police in Harare.

The transport policy ensures that issues of road safety are put in place through strict enforcement, public education and engineering measures aimed at reducing accidents.

Meanwhile, the City Fathers have introduced a new project to separate garbage collected in residential areas, which will in turn reduce its refuse collection bill and generate income for residents, reports Yeukai Karengezeka.

The city, in partnership with Higher Life Foundation, has established a waste recovery centre in Budiriro suburb as a pilot project.

In an interview, the city’s environmental amenities manager, Mr Lisben Chipfunde, said the idea behind the project was to separate degradable and non-degradable waste.

“We have a material recovery centre in Budiriro which is already up and running,” he said.

“So, we are going to start with Budiriro on a pilot basis to see how we can roll out the programme across the city because separation of waste requires additional resources.”

Mr Chipfunde said they intended to give each household two types of bins where they will place different types of waste and the biodegradable materials can be sold to the centre in Budiriro.

“People from the community will be paid for their recyclable material,” he said.

The city will then collect general waste which will be dumped at Pomona.

The recyclable waste will be sent to the material recovery centre where households are free to drop off their non-biodegradable waste and get paid for it.

Mr Chipfunde said the move will assist in reducing the frequency of garbage collection.

“If the programme is effectively implemented, it will be a positive move because we will then be able to reduce our costs in terms of frequency of collection,” he said.

“As a city, the total number of refuse trucks required at the moment is 72, but the city on average has between 23 to 25 trucks running.”

The local authority is also set to introduce underground bins in the central business district which are environmentally friendly.

“Very soon we are going to introduce new technology in waste management where we are going to put underground bins where one will not be able to see waste on the surface,” he said.

“These drums are environmentally aesthetic and they are also meant to reduce incidences of diseases related to garbage.”

In the future, the city intends to convert waste into energy and generate electricity which will be fed into the national grid.