Suburban
Diana Nherera Suburban Reporter
PUBLIC transporter Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) has redeployed a kombi to ply the City-Athlone-Greendale route.
The kombi had been taken off the road because it had to undergo a fitness test to ascertain its roadworthiness and has since been cleared to return to the road.
Following the eight-month interruption in service, the kombi has since last month been back on the City-Athlone-Greendale route to serve residents who depend on public transport.
ZANU PF District Coordinating Committee 4 Harare Province Secretary for Transport and Welfare, Cde Edmore Tirivanhu Gwengwe told Suburban that the kombi is now back plying the route after passing the fitness test.
“We had to withdraw the kombi and we facilitated for it to have white number plates as it had yellow number plates and now operates under the public transport associations,” he said.
Cde Gwengwe said the ZUPCO kombi will ease transport woes for the Athlone community and also safeguard them from criminals pretending to be pirate taxis but out to target commuters. Residents were now turning to pirate taxis also known as mushika-shika exposing them to robberies and rape in the case of women.
“There were a lot of mushika shika plying that route,” he said.
