Zupco acquires 46 new buses from China

ZUPCO is now coming out of the woods following the acquisition of 46 new buses from China that are bringing in over US$1 million every month, chief executive officer Mr Morris Sakabuya has said.

The money is being used to pay for the acquisition of another batch of 55 buses expected in the country before December.

This will bring Zupco's fleet to 100. At its peak Zupco had more than 400 buses. At the moment it has only 59 buses.
 
But Mr Sakabuya is confident the resurgence of the company that crumbled under price controls and failure to pay for hired buses is "right on track".

The company has set a US$19 000 target for each of the buses per month.

"Each region is operating like a business unit. The divisional operations managers track the movements of each bus on a daily basis," he said.

He said management had been given a free reign to choose high paying routes and to retire those that do not bring returns.

"We have many routes but few buses," he said.

Mr Sakabuya said the buses have been deployed on long distance tarred routes for both inter-city and city to rural. He said the thrust this time was to make the buses sweat and raise funds for the purchase of more.

Another 20 buses are expected in July and another 20 in October.