5.3
Our recommendations
ZIMBABWE PEACE PROJECT MONTHLY MONITORING REPORT
AUGUST 2021
The Zimbabwe Peace Project calls on government to attend to the
overall challenges affecting the public transport sector in
Zimbabwe.
These challenges, which we believe should be attended to with
urgency, include - but are not limited to - the unavailability of
buses, especially during peak hours, the poor state of the buses, the
operators’ non-compliance to COVID-19 protocols, the hike in fares
and the insensitivity to persons with disability.
These challenges have become the major reasons why the ZUPCO
public bus system has become a human rights issue.
ZPP carried out an exploration around Harare and discovered the
following issues, which government should urgently attend to.
•Resuscitating a broke company: In 2019, when the programme
started, ZUPCO was reeling under a debt of US$16 million,
including US$7 million in salary arrears, US$5 million owed to trade
creditors, and US$3 million worth of pension arrears. The bus
company approached the government to warehouse the debt in
order to make it more appealing to potential investors. It was under
that dire financial background that ZUPCO was engaged to lead the
public transport sector with the aid of private owners contracted to
operate under the company’s banner. There has been little that has
been said about the debt, neither has there been any clarity in how
ZUPCO has managed the revenue it has acquired. ZPP therefore
calls on government to be transparent in how ZUPCO is being run.
This enhances public confidence in the system and enables citizens
to understand how the company, which has a long history of being
rundown, can be resuscitated to be efficient again.
•Opaque subsidies: Government announced in January 2019 that
ZUPCO was to engage private operators to be part of its subsidy
programme. Under this, private operators were to get subsidized by
government in order for them to operate. However, this has
happened without any transparency. Firstly, there has not been a
clear criterion of who qualifies to be on the programme and this has
compromised the quality and standards of ZUPCO buses.
Secondly, government has not publicly disclosed the terms of
engagement with the private operators. In December 2019, 11
months after its inception, Parliament heard that the subsidy system
had cost the taxpayer ZWL$51 million. A lack of transparency is the
reason why the country has had an unabated, continuous public
transport crisis for nearly two years now. Once again, ZPP calls for
transparency in the nature of subsidies with private operators. ZPP
also urges ZUPCO to ensure they enter into partnership with
operators who have roadworthy, disability friendly and COVID-19
compliant vehicles. This is because some of the buses under the
ZUPCO program are just but ramshackles that just got dusted up to
enable the operators to benefit.
•Disability unfriendly bus system: ZPP calls on ZUPCO to effect a
disability-friendly public transport system. Persons with disability
have continually endured having to pay extra for their assistive
devices like wheelchairs and ZUPCO buses and terminuses do not
have ramps while the staff have not been trained to be assistive of
persons with disability during boarding and alighting of buses. This
means persons with disability have to folk out extra money to
accommodate their assistive devices, and their movement
• Abuse of the law: ZPP urges government to end the inhumane
criminalization of stranded citizens who end up hitch hiking when
they fail to access ZUPCO buses. This follows the imposition of a
ZWL2,000 fine for citizens found to be hitch-hiking .