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Clr Manyenyeni

Abigail Mawonde Herald Reporter
PIRATE taxis continue to cause chaos in the city centre with Harare Mayor Councillor Bernard Manyenyeni yesterday saying council currently does not have the capacity to rid the central business district of the illegal passenger ferrying vehicles.

The mayor cited budgetary concerns.

The Council successfully removed illegal vendors from the city centre recently but is failing to deal with the issue of pirate taxis. The taxis are a menace especially in the CBD.

Clr Manyenyeni said the pirate taxis are no exception, but a tight budget was handicapping efforts by council to rid the city of the illegal vehicles.

“The operation to clean up Harare involves anything that is improper and irregular and pirate taxis are not an exception. We are not going to do everything at once because of budgetary issues, which is why you have seen us creating spaces for vendors for now. We also want to protect the livelihoods of those people considering the current economic situation. So, we will deal with what we can when we can,” he said.

Unconfirmed reports claim some of the pirate taxis are owned by municipal employees and that was making it difficult for council to fully address the matter. The mayor said council was going to deal with pirate taxis regardless of who owns them.

“We do not look at who has what, but we look at what is right and that is what we are going to stick to,” he said.

Council introduced shuttle services in a bid to bring normalcy in the city centre but it failed to work as pirate taxis are still on the roads. They pick commuters at undesignated points and do not follow other road usage regulations.