adminthis week has come none too soon.
Minister of Transport, Communications and Infrastructure Development Nicholas Goche outlined our transport problems at a ceremony where one of the many challenges was actually being solved, the opening of a bridge across the Manyame River and the extension of a dual carriageway between Harare and Norton, easily the busiest section of the Harare-Bulawayo highway.
Minister Goche went to the heart of the problems, an expectation that the Government should build and maintain highways, build and maintain railways, run rail services, bus services and airlines, and generally own and control the transport sector.
We all know that those days are long past. For a start the Government does not have enough money, and secondly there is a lot more traffic needed now than in the days when it could afford to own and run everything.
Thirty three years ago a few decent roads, a single rail service and a small airline with an aging fleet of Viscounts could cope with the limited demand. Three decades down the line that limited infrastructure would be overwhelmed totally.
Although we all complain, a lot has been added over the last three decades, just not enough.So the minister was correct when he said the first step in the new policy is a recognition by the Government itself that it cannot do everything, and should not do everything.
This has been said before, but the Government’s retreat from the old policy has been ad hoc and, in some cases, half hearted.
The railways, for example, were converted into a pair of companies, one to own the railway lines and signals and one to run trains. And there it stopped. The change was more cosmetic than real.
One expansion of the policy would be to make it real, find partners to join the Government in ownership of the actual lines (where the State might want to keep a stake to ensure the playing field is level) but totally privatise services running on those rails and ensuring that private companies can compete on services.
Roads have seen more progress, with tolls and with partnerships building dual carriageways with payments tied to those tolls. Speedier progress, a more open tender system to find partners, and a greater willingness to “let go” is now needed.
Where the Government must be in control is on regulation and enforcement. Our accident rate is atrocious. The laws are fine; they need more enforcement, like total enforcement, to work.
Laws that are not enforced are just words in a law book. Enforcing them turns us all into good drivers or non-drivers; at the moment we are just alive drivers or dead drivers. Air Zimbabwe’s saga is well past its sell-by date.
Governments around the world have found they are particularly bad at running airlines, and Zimbabwe needs to join the club. Some countries have gone further and even privatised airports, which after all are little more conceptually than a terminus and parking lot for flying buses.
Safety rules, air traffic control, customs and immigration are where governments are needed and must be active, but actually running air services and their parking lots seems eccentric.
We note the word “first” in the title of the transport policy. For that is all it is, a start in setting out who must do what and who can do what. Now it needs to be fleshed out and policy needs to be converted into action. A policy is just a framework.
That is needed but it does not provide decent rail services, good roads, low accident rates and viable airlines. To get those we need all involved to push ahead rapidly and do something.
Online Reporter