Zimpapers Logo

The major police operation launched this week to curb mushikashika, with a side benefit of stopping the more daring vendors and beggars from dancing through and dodging traffic, is not a trivial operation, but is something that was needed.

Unfortunately, it is likely to have some benefit only so long as the commissioner commanding the police in Harare province can devote enough resources, since the underlying problems regrettably remain, with a lot of those problems shared between the commuters using mushikashika, Zupco itself, and the local authorities in the province.

The police were clear about the urgency of the operation.

They are averaging at least one robbery, rape or attack on a commuter every day from people driving mushikashika, private cars used illegally as a pirate shared taxi.

In addition, the drivers are not required to have the extra skills required of public service drivers, and none are insured to carry paying passengers.

They are very dangerous.

The problem arises from the demand. Tens of thousands of people use mushikashika every day in Harare to get to and from work, or to make other necessary journeys.

They just hop onto the side of the road and make the peculiar waving gesture at the traffic rolling by until someone stops, make the short fare query and then hop in.

Everyone has heard about the robberies and attacks; people in a particular area will even discuss the mushikashika you should avoid. No one listens to the police warnings, but still wants the police to help clean up the mess afterwards and catch the criminals.

Passengers give many reasons.

First, the mushikashika are convenient and flexible. They are usually available, when a Zupco bus is nowhere in sight, and they drive right into the city centre and along some routes Zupco does not serve. They also stop at convenient points, not just official bus stops, not all of which are marked. They also run into the late evening.

Mushikashika charge more, at the moment between 1,5 times to twice the Zupco fare, but their ease and convenience means they get away with that too.

The unfranchised kombis have not been competing much with Zupco, but have made a speciality of serving routes that Zupco does not serve.

For example, along Mutare Road, there is a group of independent kombis who shout “Mbare” at those on roadsides, effectively offering a direct route to Graniteside and Southerton as well as Mbare.

They charge more, but are roughly the same price as the equivalent two Zupco fares without the hike across town between the two terminuses.

So, part of the solution lies with Zupco. The bus company has advanced since the Government decided to relaunch it as a public transport company near the start of the Second Republic and since then buying regularly batches of new buses.

In a highly imaginative move to solve a double problem, owners of private buses and kombis were invited to partner Zupco, taking the company franchise, but following the company rules, procedures and fares.

This both expanded the Zupco fleet to a useful size, and made sure that those who were in the business before and had invested in vehicles could stay in business, but under Zupco operational control.

It has worked, but Zupco has tended to react to events rather than lead events. Last year, after consultation, Cabinet decided the next step would see Zupco introduce a limited number of scheduled services on some routes.

This would contrast with the practice inherited from the kombis of setting forth when full, however long the bus waited. We still have no scheduled services, despite a Cabinet directive to the State-owned company.

Scheduled services mean you can plan a journey around a timetable. It also means you do not have to guess when “Zupco is coming” and thus hop into a mushikashika; you just walk to your stop at say 43 minutes past the hour in the certain knowledge that Zupco will be passing very soon on schedule.

So, Zupco needs to start that pilot programme of scheduled services. It also needs to put in night services, after clearing the evening peak.

The old HUOC used to run a modest number of scheduled services through the night with a bus every hour, or two hours or three hours on each route.

You used to see groups of late workers walking together to the terminus. Now you see desperate late workers standing on the roadside. Another problem has been the inherited Harare city centre town planning.

There is no central terminus, but rather a string of four along the edges of the city centre with services from each group of suburbs terminating in the closest, despite the up two 2km walk between them.

A short-term solution might be a cheap loop service round the four.

But for Vision 2030, we also need that central terminus, and the site is there.

The railways have a large block of land at the south of the city centre. The railway station needs to remain for train services, but the land between the station and Seke Road could be swapped for other land elsewhere and then used for the central bus terminus, which might mean a two or three storey building and incorporate a market.

It would allow easy interchanges between buses and between buses and trains and be remarkably central.

One important point of the present police operation is that the four local authorities in Harare Province were brought in, and Harare, Chitungwiza, Ruwa and Epworth do not often work together. They now need to.

Public transport often needs a provincial wide plan and this is something that perhaps the Resident Minister’s Office should be considering keeping the four together and using its own muscle in negotiations with each other and with Zupco and the railways.

We have just over 7 years left before 2030 and by that stage we want to be discussing something a lot different from mushikashika and long walks between terminuses.

This is why the two service providers, the four authorities and the Resident Minister’s Office need to be working out what the 2030 service needs to look like, so every one of the 91 remaining months will see another piece in place.