ZIMBABWE PEACE PROJECT MONTHLY MONITORING REPORT
AUGUST 2021
5.1
The background to the current crisis
Image: JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP/Getty Images
In January 2019, following widespread protests against the rise in
the prices of fuel, government – which blamed private commuter
operators of fueling the protests - announced that it was reintroducing a subsidized public transport system. At that time, the
local commuting passengers in all cities and towns relied purely on
private operators and the public entity, The Zimbabwe United
Passenger Company (ZUPCO) only operated on long-distance
routes, but was also very much overshadowed by private players.
Whilst private commuter operators were allowed to continue with
their operations, government made it clear that in future, it had the
intentions of eventually just having ZUPCO as the only player in the
local public transport sector.
Since ZUPCO did not have an adequate fleet to service all local
routes in the country, government contracted private bus
companies through a subsidy system.
At the same time, President Mnangagwa unveiled batches of new
ZUPCO buses to add onto the existing fleet, but these however
continued to fall far short of the required numbers and private
players who had not joined the ZUPCO subsidy system continued to
fill the gap.
At the end of March 2020 when President Mnangagwa announced
that Zimbabwe was to go into its first COVID-19 lockdown, one of
the measures was to ban the operations of private commuter
operators.
This resulted in massive public transport shortages and others that
have continued to dog the country to this date.
It is against this background that ZPP presents report on the state
of public transport; affordability, accessibility and safety.