Scores of frustrated Bulawayo commuters Saturday went to a ZUPCO depot in the city to confront the public transporters managers after spending more than four hours waiting for transport at a city bus rank.<\/p>\n
The ZUPCO depot is located a stone’s throw from the city centre.<\/p>\n
Some of the commuters say they had waited for close to four hours after which they decided to confront the company’s management on why they were being short changed.<\/p>\n
“On Saturday, I waited for ZUPCO buses at Hamara rank in the city centre for almost four hours.<\/p>\n
“I arrived at the rank around 5 pm and by 8pm there were still no buses until we organised each other with among commuters so we could march to the ZUPCO depot,” said a Pumula South commuter, Nyasha Muchemwa.<\/p>\n
When they got to the depot, he said, they were referred to a transport manager.<\/p>\n
“At the depot we were referred to a lady transport manager who accused us of being too impatient.<\/p>\n
“We tried to explain to her that the 8pm curfew cut-off had already lapsed. The lady also insisted that there were plenty of buses to ferry every commuter at the rank,” he said.<\/p>\n
Muchemwa said the manager only released a bus after the angry commuters threatened to sleep at the depot.<\/p>\n
“The manager grudgingly allocated us a ramshackle bus without lights. We eventually left town around 9 pm and I arrived home around 10 pm,” said another commuter.<\/p>\n
Many commuting workers in the city often find themselves unable to comply with the dictates of the 8pm curfew cut-off recently announced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa as part of his government’s measures to contain the spread of Copvid-19.<\/p>\n
However, due to transport scarcity following a ban on private operators, coupled with a depleted ZUPCO fleet, some workers find themselves still queuing for buses as late as 8pm, falling foul of curfew laws.<\/p>\n
This has seen a lot of commuters arrested for violating curfew regulations while queuing or disembarking from buses and kombis in the city’s high-density suburbs.<\/p>\n
Apart from the general shortage of ZUPCO buses, fuel scarcity has also compounded the situation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Scores of frustrated Bulawayo commuters Saturday went to a ZUPCO depot in the city to confront the public transporters managers after spending more than four hours waiting for transport at a city bus rank. The ZUPCO depot is located a stone’s throw from the city centre. Some of the commuters say they had waited for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":25008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[188,385],"class_list":{"0":"post-27170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-community","9":"tag-bulawayo","10":"tag-zupco"},"yoast_head":"\n