Call for govt to capacitate ZUPCO, NRZ

Harare, (New Ziana) -The government should assist the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) in building its fleet of buses to ferry people around the country, legislators said on Tuesday. Last week, proportional representation Member of Parliament Dorothy Mashonganyika raised a motion urging the government to provide financial assistance to ZUPCO and private public transport operators to acquire vehicles. Mashonganyika also urged the government to increase its financial support to the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) for it to enhance its operations and provide safer as well as reliable alternative transportation to meet demand.

Pelandaba-Tshabalala MP Joseph Tshumba said capacitating ZUPCO will eliminate pirate taxis. “So, it would be a good thing if the government capacitates ZUPCO with an adequate complement of buses as this will eliminate pirate taxis. ZUPCO should be capacitated to buy more buses and they should buy buses that can operate in both urban and rural areas. There are buses that are meant for urban routes on tarred roads only. This needs to be looked into,” he said.

Tshuma said the government should also capacitate the NRZ with locomotives and passenger trains. “The issue of rehabilitating our railway networks is quite important and will benefit our people. This is an issue that we have raised several times as Parliament that our roads are being damaged by large haulage trucks that carry heavy loads. There is need for alternatives through the provision of passenger and goods trains so that our goods are carried on locomotives.

“There should be additional locomotives that ply different routes across the country. Looking at Harare which has quite a large population, there are areas like Chitungwiza, Norton, and Ruwa which are a bit far away from the Central Business District and need public transportation through the railway line,” he said. Emakhandeni-Luveve MP Discent Bajila said Parliament should find other means of making sure that Zupco becomes viable again. “We need now to find means of making sure that ZUPCO is viable, because despite the debt assumption of 20 years ago, the Debt Assumption Act, making recommendations on reforms that were going to prevent ZUPCO from being in debt again, ZUPCO is back in debt.

“We need to say as we think of recapitalising ZUPCO, we must find other ways because the old ways we have done of saying ZUPCO is in debt, let us give them money, they buy new cars, those cars got defunct. Again, ZUPO has problems, we pump money. It has proven that it does not work and the ZUPCO Debt Assumption Act of 2005 is enough proof for this House to consider,” he said. He also concurred that the NRZ should also be capacitated. “Fixing NRZ is also at the centre of fixing our roads because we need to reduce the load on our roads and take it to our railways,” said Bajila.

New Ziana