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The transport situation, unlike in previous years, has improved with many vehicles on the road now though public transporters seem to have gone a gear up in fleecing travellers of their cash. There is a worrisome trend by public transport operators whereby they increase fares during holidays by up to two or three times the usual fares as they capitalise on increased traffic.
The Government has over the years responded to such unethical behaviour by threatening punitive action against the operators. It would appear even the operators have since realised that they will always get empty threats from the Government during holidays.
Transport, Communications and Infrastructural Development permanent secretary Mr Patson Mbiriri said transport operators who increase fares during holidays risk losing their operating licences. He said this in response to the rampant abuse of travellers during the Christmas holidays by unscrupulous operators that chose to increase fares hence denying some people a chance to be with their families, as they could not afford the fares.
The government has threatened to take the legal route of cancelling operating licences for the transport operators, as well as considering enacting a statutory instrument to gazette fares to be charged by transport operators.
We appreciate that the Government might be sincere in shielding the people from these operators’ greed but find the proposed actions largely reactive and not likely to be effective.
The Government has always had a right to withdraw permits from operators or not to renew them when they expire and we do not think this has helped in deterring operators from straying from the requirements of their permits. The Ministry of Transport should look into a longer term and sustainable way of dealing with transporters and we believe the answer might lie in increasing competition in the sector.
This could be done through capacitating the National Railways of Zimbabwe so that it becomes more efficient and has a greater capacity to carry more passengers. The reason why operators tend to toss passengers around is that they know that they have no alternative transport. The Zimbabwe United Passenger Company is another entity that also used to stabilise the transport sector in terms of pricing. If these public-owned transporters could be capacitated and charge reasonable fares on most routes, operators would not unnecessarily increase fares during peak periods. The ball is in the Government’s court and it must review its strategies on dealing with transport operators so that passengers do not endure abuse at the hands of operators each holiday only to get the traditional threat of action from the ministry.
As for the transport operators, they should know that business is run on ethics and that they should not take their customers for granted. It is sound business practice that will set real businesspeople apart from pretenders and opportunists. What we have observed about greedy operators is that they do not even care about the safety of their customers since their pre-occupation is making a lot of money in the shortest possible time hence exposing passengers to danger through speeding.
We believe it is high time we saw real action from the Government to tame transport operators so that the authorities are not reduced to bystanders that only have a voice after accidents when passing condolences.
Operators that consistently flout regulations and consistently throw out the window their moral obligations should be punished by having their licences withdrawn though it hurts most when you hit their pockets through providing alternative transport that will eat into their market share.
With pro-active planning, in a few years customers could actually determine the fares instead of being hopeless price takers who are at the mercy of transporters every holiday.