A reliable public transport system is needed in every country, especially one aspiring to upper middle income status, working in every area, both urban and rural, to move the greater number of people travelling and commuting to the ever larger number of jobs being filled.
So the Government’s decision to capitalise the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company with another 500 buses, with 185 being delivered by year end, is critical.
Just as important is the necessary concentration on good management, including the critical operational management, and here Mutapa Investment Fund will have to take effective measures, as it has done at other State-owned entities now under its control.
The service has to be good. As countries develop they tend to see a lot more private ownership of private cars. But there are limits as to just how useful that is as roads become crowded, commutes longer and parking ever more expensive.
These problems can be eased by a public transport system that is good enough to compete with private cars, being more efficient and at least offering a decent seat in a well-maintained bus or train.
That is the target that Zupco has to aim for, not just being a service for those who cannot afford a car, but a service that is good enough to offer car owners a decent alternative.
Serving everyone means that even the poorest get a decent break and the owner of a luxury car left parked at home gets to work in half the time with zero bother.
This will almost certainly require a revolution in how management thinks, and that is one of the challenges facing Mutapa, along with their standard clean-up of accounts and financial procedures, cutting out the waste and making sure everyone on the staff knows what to do and is doing it.
The clean-up is just half the process. When the new buses all arrive, Zupco will have a fleet of 767.
That is still below the fleet on nationalisation in the 1980s when the Harare United Omnibus Company and the Zimbabwe Omnibus Company, that served the rest of the country, were merged.
But a fleet that size is a good starting point for the resuscitation of scheduled urban services in the largest cities. Since bus services are only really viable with affordable fares when buses travel full or nearly full most of the time, we again see the need for first class operational management running a service that is exceptionally dependable.
So far a lot of the Zupco fleet has been assigned to ensuring civil servants have an adequate service.
That must have built up the required facilities and expertise in keeping a modern fleet properly serviced and on the road, a major gain.
At least Zupco knows what a large fleet needs for everything from spares inventories down to the number of drivers, so shift work can be used.
Now, with the tripling of the fleet, that needs to be scaled up, again highly efficient to ensure that fares can cover costs, but not subsidise bad or inefficient management.
In some countries the top managers of the public transport system, right up to CEO level, have to use their own services to at least commute to work and preferably do a lot of their other running around.
That might not be a bad idea in Zimbabwe. When a top manager sees the appalling conditions at most bus terminuses, the problems of waiting in the rain at a recognised, but unmarked bus stop without a shelter, and all the other present sufferings of their customers, they might do something useful.
The pool of expert and trained Zimbabweans is constantly growing and the old excuses that everyone was still learning will not wash. Mutapa has shown in its general clean-up of State-owned enterprises, starting with clean accounts ready and audited on time, that it can ensure the expertise is available.
Second Republic and Mutapa standards that the best is just good enough also help and that attitude needs to permeate the revitalised Zupco, just as it is permeating the other two major State-owned transport sectors, Air Zimbabwe and the National Railways of Zimbabwe. Second best is not good enough when we are aiming at a quite different sort of country.
