Mnangagwa commissions first batch of new Zupco buses

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has sent off 28 buses out of the 800 that were ordered by government to Zupco, to start operating and once again make the parastatal the transporter of choice.

Speaking during the commissioning of the buses, President Mnangagwa said government will continue to work round the clock to ensure that the transport challenges are addressed.

"These challenges of public transport will now be a thing of the past. Government will ensure that more buses come in and ease these challenges especially in urban areas where commuter omnibus operators were causing untold suffering to the people by wantonly hiking their fares," he said.

This comes on the backdrop of private operators having been roped in by Zupco to provide buses following the events of January 2019 which saw the withdrawal of transport services by commuter omnibus operators a situation which greatly affected the public.

"Today we rolled out the first batch of new ZUPCO buses, which will make life better, easier and more affordable for Zimbabweans, both urban and rural. Our journey of progress is just beginning, and we will work to ensure all the people of Zimbabwe are on board!," President Mnangagwa said.

In conjunction with the send off of the buses, a new engineering model of controlling, managing the fleet developed by Dr Talon Garikai who is the Director of Technology Transfer at the Harare Institute of Technology (HIT) was also unveiled.

This will be rolled out as more and more buses come into the country.

However, local industry players in the bus manufacturing sector said, in future, government must think of bringing the knockdown kits of the buses so that they can be assembled locally.

Of the 800, 500 are from Belarus, 200 from South Africa and 100 from China.