After years of illegal takeover by touts and ushers, the Harare City Council (HCC) has finally regained control of the Simon Muzenda Bus Station (formerly 4th Street Bus Station).
These rogue groups were reportedly collecting thousands of dollars a day in fees from carriers. The city council now collects more than $800 a day in rank user fees from the station. It is now considering an operation to grab four more bus stations in the city center – Market Square, Rezende, Responsible Office, and Via Speke (also known as Copacabana).
All four places are controlled by promoters who extort money from bus operators.
In an interview with the Sunday Mail, HCC City Clerk Engineer Hosea Chisango said: “Every bus stop will henceforth be monitored by the City of Harare. We will be responsible for collecting fares from all ranks, rather than touts.”
“We are now responsible for the 4th Street rank and are collecting about $800 a day.” He said the council was currently only operating the station between 8am and 4pm, but plans were afoot to extend the opening hours. “We were getting such little revenue because of our uptime,” said engineer Chisango. “Now, we are looking to extend our opening hours beyond 4pm as we have noticed that the rank gets busier after that time. We are targeting to work till 8pm.
“Now that we’re in charge of the Fourth Street rank, we’re looking to do the same thing at Rezende, Copacabana and Charge Office, and then we’ll finish up at Market Square. It’s just that we have everything under control.”
“Basically, we’re restoring order. We want to use our assets to generate revenue so we can spruce it up.”
Engineer Chisango said the council intends to renovate all the bus stops.
Harare has at least five associations representing bus and public coach operators, with about 800 members.
Under the unauthorized taxes, the guards are said to collect up to US$240,000 per month from each association, bringing the cumulative figure to about US$1 million per month.
Engineer Chisango added: “For the safety of our staff, we will be building guard rooms and will have cash transportation vehicles collecting money from the ranks at regular intervals throughout the day.” The council accepts all forms of payment, including electronic transactions at points of sale. We are also working on introducing an electronic system that will show head office all the money that would have been paid by carriers in real time.
He encouraged transport operators to make use of the council’s holding spaces. Sunday mail
