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Once again Harare City Council is trying to sort out the city centre and public transport, and once again has the backing of the police, as it seeks to move vendors from areas they have grabbed.
All this is an attempt to curb mushikashika and unregistered kombis, and also have the registered buses and kombis operate services from decent terminuses.
This is not the first time it has been trying to do this, and even this year there has been one previous, and totally unsuccessful, attempt. If the council is serious, it needs to take its own plans seriously and needs to use the very large licence fees it charges registered kombi and bus operators to clean up its own terminuses.
Talk is cheap. Effective action is needed, and is needed to be applied in the correct way that maximises services for all residents and minimises suffering.
This requires an awareness of priorities and a willingness to take the correct decisions for the correct reasons. The police have promised support, but they need to be told exactly what the policy is, and what the priorities are, if they are to back the city council.
Everyone can label the problems in public transport. We have a modest Zupco presence, plus at least two large self-regulating associations of kombis who have done sterling work in branding the kombis of their members, and critically adding a unique identification number for each kombi, plus the complaints telephone number.
Zudac and Ghaco, the two most prominent associations for kombi operators, have been complaining about the very high fees charged by the city council, US$143 a year compared to the US$125 charged every three years by the Government to recover the costs for the work it has to do.
The Government ensures that the kombis and buses on the approved routes are mechanically-sound, are licenced and insured, and have drivers who are properly licenced. This covers the basics.
The council fee is supposed to raise the money to ensure that there are properly marked bus stops, that the terminuses in both the city centre and the end of the line in the suburbs are respectable, safe and clean and in good order.
But the council seems to assume that the money can be used for anything but providing a service to its residents who use public transport, the majority, and that service providers, the bus and kombi operators, are able to offer these services.
The main problem has always been a council that seems to see all public transport as a problem, rather than a solution.
For a start, buses and kombis, and even the illegal mushikashika do not cause congestion, they relieve congestion.
Most cities try and create a proper public transport system to minimise private transport, and the vast number of cars that results from private drivers using their own cars to come to work.
Anyone looking at the huge traffic jams that build up in and around central Harare, and in many other parts of the city, will immediately notice that almost all the vehicles in the jam are private vehicles. That growing number, plus the faulty traffic lights, create most of the congestion.
This point needs to be made considering the sort of comments made by some in the council, and even the disastrous attempts to get public transport to operate outside the city centre and their passengers made to walk up to 3km to get to work, so the roads in the central business district can be reserved for private motorists including the top council officials with their fancy council double cabs.
Charging registered kombis US$143 a year is very steep, especially when the operator gets zero return for that money.
A look around the five terminuses in use in the city centre highlights the problems. Operators pay and get no support, no facilities and unlicenced mushikashika and kombis taking the spaces and passengers.
A dozen kombi fees would fence even the largest terminus, providing a lot more safety, and another dozen fees would allow the surfaces to be re-tarred and properly marked, and for route signs to be erected.
A couple more licences would buy the light bulbs the remnants of the public lighting now need, especially as winter evenings see darkness fall early. What is the money already collected been used for?
Terminuses attract vendors and hawkers and touts, Even the largest terminus, the full city block at Simon Muzenda Street, saw a major invasion of illegal vendors a couple of months ago, taking over large sections especially in the south-west quadrant.
The council ordered them to move, actually giving them notice, and warning them that if they stayed they would be evicted.
Two months later they are still there and even use trucks to bring in their goods, second-hand clothes and even pallets to lay on the ground every day.
Touts are there in numbers, effectively running protection rackets. The hawkers, those selling cheap drinks and biscuits from a bag they carry around, are not really a problem, do not threaten anyone and scrape a living without obstructing traffic or passengers, unlike the vendors and touts.
Mushikashika and unlicenced kombis use the same terminuses, taking up the space the legal operators desperately need, and even taking passengers away from those who pay the fees.
Council, with a terminus controller and a tiny squad of municipal police could sort a lot out, especially if all terminuses were properly fenced, with gates on all sides exposed to a road. The same guards would make passengers safer. A second year of fees could fix all the shelters, or replace them where necessary.
In a properly run terminus the council could also sell advertising rights on standard shelter designs and perhaps cut the fees for the operators. Again it requires the council to take its obligations to the majority seriously, rather than to the car-owning minority.
But cleaned-up terminuses, proper bus stops indented into the parking bays at least every two blocks, would eliminate the small amount of congestion caused by buses and kombis.
So yes, the blitz the council will now organise, at least for a couple of days, may help solve short term problems, but lasting solutions require a different attitude and different priorities, including using the fees collected from the legal public transport operators to provide the amenities and services they and their passengers require.
Harare City Council are not very good at organising, but they need to learn.
Online Reporter