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schoolchildren around the city each day, in fact we just manage with around 10 000, according to the latest city council figures, and even then queues can be long at evening peak times.
The problem is not the numbers of kombis, since there must be at least another 300 000 functioning vehicles in Harare and so kombis are just three percent of the total, but the way they have been allowed to run wild.
For reasons which we do not understand, and are not really interested in hearing, there has been some reluctance to force every commercial kombi into a proper integrated transport plan.
This is weird.
The Transport Ministry and the police have forced kombis to obey minimum safety regulations.
Many might be tatty but almost all are safe, at least to the extent of having functional brakes, adequate steering and tyres with some tread left. Considering how most drivers use the road, this is essential.
They now even have to have a rubbish bin aboard if they are to get through the next road block.
Drivers complain about the police, but we see why the traffic section has to keep unrelenting pressure on the kombis over safety issues.
But when it comes to other regulations, those the city council is supposed to enforce, we hear a different story.
Senior planning official Mrs Judith Majegu last week, gave the horrifying figures that only 4 000 of the estimated 10 000 Harare kombis are registered with the city.
The rest use terminuses for free, ranks for free, streets for free and set their own routes.
She seemed most upset that there were so many kombis and that they set their own routes, which we feel was making the wrong point.
Obviously the whole 10 000 are needed, otherwise there would be no queues, and we assume the freeloaders will tend to go where demand is highest.
Market forces tend to work efficiently in the present set-up and the council should be wary about interring too much there.
But what is totally unacceptable is that kombis should be allowed to decide where they will park, and to have parked kombis blocking roads, making the traffic jams, which are very bad, especially near the western and southern exits to the city centre, even worse.
It is also unacceptable that they should be able to use any road they like in the city centre and cause huge jams as they shoot give-way signs and blast across busy avenues.
Here the city council does have to take control. After interminable delays it now seems the Coventry Road holding ranks will be ready next week.
Assuming the council has enough trained marshals at these holding ranks and in the western streets of the city centre it should finally be possible to have what everyone has always wanted, a continuous stream of kombis coming into town to pick up people but no kombis parking there.
The huge Fourth Street rank in the east of the city centre does mean that eastern routes are far less clogged and we hope the same will soon be seen in the west.
And obviously, a joint municipal-ZRP operation can ensure that only paid-up registered kombis use the new and old facilities, meaning that the council, by charging a very modest fee, can fund improvements to these facilities as well as get traffic flowing better, streets opened up while still give commuters a reasonable service.
And in the end that is what we all need, some system that can move up to 500 000 people a day without making life a misery for all.
Online Reporter