Mbare Musika faces temporary closure

Nyemudzai Kakore Herald Correspondent
Harare City Council will today and tomorrow temporarily shut down part of Mbare Musika Bus Terminus to allow for the upgrading of the station to ease congestion as well as restore order in the CBD, a council official said.

Harare corporate communications manager Mr Michael Chideme said Coventry Holding Bay has now been turned into a bus terminus to pick-up and drop-off passengers from Western suburbs. Mr Chideme said the programme code named “Operation Sunshine City” will witness three new bus terminuses being established. The terminuses will be put in place opposite Rhodesville Police Station and at Coca-Cola Corner where ablution facilities were being put in place since yesterday.

“Mbare Musika Bus Terminus will be under- going renovations beginning tomorrow (today) .The renovations include resurfacing, putting new sheds and fencing of the terminus to make sure that council is able to collect its revenue and to get rid of touts. In the meantime, buses will be using only sections of the areas where we would have completed renovations to pick-up and drop-off passengers. It will be a parallel process. However, we are still looking for more convenient bus terminuses to ease congestion. Rhodesville bus terminus will be ferrying people to places such as Mutare and Marondera while Coca-Cola corner will ferry people to places such as Murehwa and Mutoko,” he said.

The move by council to remove vendors from undesignated sites as well as establish new bus terminuses comes after President Mugabe last week bemoaned the vendor menace and lack of order in the CBD, saying Harare should be the smartest city in the country as it is the capital.

Mr Chideme said council had banned all illegal taxis and commuter omnibuses operating at undesignated places around the city. He said shuttle bus services will be providing passengers with relief transport by dropping them closer to bus terminuses. Questioned on how council will incorporate vendors, Mr Chideme said: “Most vendors will now be relocated to the newly-established bus terminuses so that they will be able to sell their wares to customers boarding buses to different destinations.”