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THE Harare City Council should urgently elicit the services of the Zimbabwe traffic police to rid the central business district of the chaos on the roads that has become the order of the day as commuter omnibus rank or pick up passengers in the middle of the road, obstructing traffic flow and causing numerous accidents.
It has become a nightmare to drive through the city centre particularly in the evenings when commuter omnibus drivers break every available traffic regulation or city by-law. They drive through red traffic lights, close lanes and make abrupt stops or U-turns willy nilly.
The situation is getting worse as competition for passengers heats up while the volume of traffic has continued to increase on our roads. It has really become a jungle.
While during daytime municipal police run battles with kombis as they seek to bring sanity in the CBD, it is during the evening that the truant kombi drivers do as they please on the roads, causing unnecessary congestion and accidents as other drivers try to navigate their way through.
Many roads, both uptown and downtown become impassable at night. It has almost become the “new normal”. For instance, Julius Nyerere Way has become a danger zone, particularly at the corner with Robert Mugabe and also with Kenneth Kaunda. Here, kombis do as they please unabated.
It is sad to note that the two areas are only a stone’s throw away from Town House, the city council’s head office, and the Central Police Station itself. Honestly such chaos cannot be allowed to continue on their watch.
Zimbabwe is presently angling for more investors and tourists but it is such issues as the flagrant disregard of laws in the city centre that will put off a tourist or even an investor. Such seemingly small issues have a huge bearing on the overall brand Zimbabwe.
Furthermore, should lives be lost and vehicles damaged simply because a kombi driver wants to meet their daily target and a bit more for their pockets? This happening while the responsible authorities watch? How many more people should die before the mayhem is given due attention?
Where are the councillors that are responsible for the city centre? They seem blind to this menace or they just cannot be bothered since this normally happens after hours.
So many things are going wrong in Harare but city officials cannot tell the whole country that they have resigned to fate where controlling traffic at night is concerned. There are so many penalties they could charge to ensure order is maintained, while evening shifts for municipal police can surely be put in place to ensure order is maintained.
We are informed that the once neat and tidy Sunshine City is aiming for a global city status but we will not fool ourselves to believe that such a status will come anytime soon if such issues as the traffic chaos are not addressed.
We would be lying to ourselves and to our children that Harare is anywhere near attaining any significant recognition, global or local. It has a lot of work to do before it can fathom earning any authentic status.
We shall not say much about infrastructure, garbage or the return of vendors into the city centre at this juncture, suffice to say that the city fathers’ hands are full.
Fears that Harare can soon become like some African cities where traffic disorder reigns supreme are real. Something needs to be done urgently. We are supposed to be the pride of Africa.
The world over, capital cities help countries attract investment and are supposed to contribute significantly to national economic growth but Harare is in fact, constricting the growth.
If it cannot deal with simple issues as controlling commuter omnibuses, how then does it hope to deal with more complex issues that require lots of resources and attention.
We do not commiserate with poor service delivery and we will not camouflage wrongs that the city seems to be perpetuating. Only through frank debate can Harare and Zimbabwe at large get out of challenges that are impeding socio-economic progress.
The onset of rains often brings with it chaos on the roads as congestion becomes the order of the day. We, therefore, are quite apprehensive as regards the state of traffic once the present challenge is compounded by the rains.
We have noticed that even light showers cause confusion on our roads, particularly in the city centre.
No situation is ever beyond redemption so we make a passionate plea to the city authorities and their compatriots at ZRP to redress the mayhem on our roads with haste.
Harare has so much potential for decency and can become a major economic hub but this can only materialise if the authorities tackle current challenges head-on.
Online Reporter