Zupco buses can now carry more passengers under new
Government health guidelines to ease public transport challenges, but truck
drivers who have been running pirate services will be severely penalised.
Announcing the developments at a post-Cabinet Press
briefing yesterday, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister
Monica Mutsvangwa said the increase in carrying capacity was subject to
mandatory temperature testing, wearing of masks by passengers and the buses
being disinfected and sanitised after every trip.
Transport challenges have been growing as the formal
economy joins essential services in being exempted from the lockdown now at
Level 2.
With companies in the formal sector now all allowed to open,
a lot more people need to get to and from work.
This has seen workers spending long periods queuing at bus
stops to get to work, or take a change in a pirate service, and long queues
forming at city centre and industrial bus terminuses.
Many workers need to take two buses in each direction, one
to get from home to the city centre and the second to get from the city centre
to work.
Independent kombis, which were the backbone of public
transport, remain banned, although kombi and bus owners can apply to join the
Zupco fleet under the already existing franchise arrangement.
Public transport challenges have been worsened by the
necessary social distancing rules, which effectively halved the number of
passengers in a bus or kombi. Recently, Minister Mutsvangwa announced that the
Zupco fleet (of buses and kombis) had been boosted by between 300 and 800 to
meet the growing demand for transport.
Though acknowledging the crucial role truckers play in
ferrying cargo across borders and cities, Minister Mutsvangwa said it was
worrisome that most of them were testing positive for Covid-19, yet they have
become responsible for the unlawful movement of citizens between cities and in
cities, disregarding lockdown
restrictions.
Cabinet, the minister revealed, resolved that truck drivers
found transporting passengers without authorisation be penalised, as they were
putting passengers and many others at risk.
Minister Mutsvangwa said it was further agreed that
truckers should be enlightened on “regulations governing their operations in
Zimbabwe at the borders and that further guidelines for the mandatory testing
of truck drivers would be availed soon.” Herald
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