The Bus and Taxi Driver’s association of Zambia says the decision to foreclose Capital Bus Services as reported in the daily nation newspaper of 3rd April 2019 makes very sad reading for the 500 direct and indirect employees that will have their livelihoods taken away from them and the commuters that have over the years used the service.
Association national secretary Sydney Mbewe says the impact of this decision does not end with the employees of capital buses but will equally affect the ten households per bus that depend on capital bus operations and services which means that 243 drivers will be laid off with an equal number of conductors following.
Mr. Mbewe said Capital Buses operations indirectly provide support to breadwinners that clean the buses, young boys, young girls, old women selling fruits to feed and educate their orphaned grandchildren, youths that clean around the station to provide for their siblings and pay rentals and entrepreneur youths that make their ends meet by ensuring that capital buses replace a damaged ribbon.
He said the sad and heart-breaking part is that the decision is not based on lack of business due to competition, but on the fact that capital buses has failed to find protection through the government which has failed to put the ministry of home affairs to task as to why the police have become spectators to the daily commissioning of breach of the law.
Mr. Mbewe said the pending decision by capital buses proprietor Ishmael Kankara which they pray will not be effected is just an iceberg of the many subsistence operators who have pulled out of the transport business leaving many drivers jobless with no opportunity to get another one.
He said the streets have now been taken over by individuals executing the mandate of the council reaping thousands upon thousands of kwachas of council revenue while the same council threatens workers that dare to question why they are not being paid on time that’s if they get paid at all.
Mr. Mbewe has since appealed to President Edgar Lungu to intervene before all those that have invested in the sector are pushed out and replaced with non- compliant and non-tax paying non state actors to run the transport sector.
He said President Lungu must also issue orders to the Police as was executed to contain cholera so that the Zambia Police Service, the road transport and safety agency and slumberous Lusaka City council may perform their duties for which they are employed to do.
We are slowly allowing criminal, mafia like organizations to emerge, thrive & grow, all in the absurd name of “empowerment!’ Empowering thieves & vagabonds, what value do they add to anything? Be careful lest the monster you breed goes rabid & turns on it’s master…
Ati “ the humble president “
A shambles of a president
PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu will tomorrow undertake a three – day working visit in Luapula Province.
According to a programme released to the Media by Luapula Province Permanent Secretary Dr. Felix Phiri, President Lungu is expected to arrive at Mansa Airport
Really laughable….
Zambia needs proper mass transport systems not these rickety tins called mini buses. Mass transport will reduce congestion and rid towns of vagabonds called ng’wang’wazis
@Bashi ntwane
There is a transport master plan that was done at great cost several years ago and financed by JICA lying idle at MCT and LCC. Mass transits were part of it. I know one business person who tried to buy into it soon after it was released but faced resistance. Even with the best of intentions, para-transits as our public transport in Zambia is referred to is not the way to go.
The report may never be implemented …
I smell a dead rat here. Capital Bus whatever must clean their house!
You don’t know….even farmers and marketeers are complaining at being held at ransom and extorted by these PF thugs who are in fact PF foot soldiers.
PF depend on these thugs extorting the public and businesses to campaign for them…..they are the foot soldiers of PF and their payment is holding bus stops, markets and other public spaces at ransom
Lungu is fully aware of this with his blessings
This is genuine concern.LET’S WAIT AND SEE.
Wait and see what ?
Lungu and kapoyongo are fully aware of the PF kaponyas holding people at ransom.
Ishmael Kankhara has been in this business for a long time and so his decision, though painful, is the right one. His buses get chased from picking passengers because he has instructed his drivers not to give Kaponya money for picking passengers. These Kaponyas are very powerful and usually boast as they extort money from drivers that they are Kennedy Kamba’s people, so they are untouchable. Bravo Ishmael for saying NO to this PF nonsense. We can’t have a country whose systems are controlled by Kaponya! I am 100% with you on this one
Only if you live by the river bank can you hear the crab cough. You and I who live far away from the bank may not really know the reasons this company has decided to go it this way. We have heard this and that concerning the operations of the said transport company but cannot take that for truth. Each side shall try to paint their side very white but the truth will one day come out clear. It is therefor not good judgement to side when one has no facts.
Let me pass
Flash!!!
I hope it’s those old ford buckets, those ones should not have been permitted at all.
Even if flash shuts down another operator who is willing to give these cadres what they want will take over.
The country is speedily slipping and sliding, with no hope of ever getting up!!
Don’t just complain my brother. Why did you run away in the first place. Why don’t you invest back home and give competition to the so called ford buckets Instead of sitting afar and wining. Whose stopping you. Armchair critic.
Nah, forget it, am investing right here.
Why blame innocent council chief officers? If they try control things, His Excellency President Lungu will come and remind them that PF was elected to serve the poor, the common people. What can a council officer do?
Lawlessness is at its pick in our country. Why do these chaps ask to be paid when a bus loads? For what? Even in the markets as farmers it is the same. Take your to ma tomatoes, the first thing you have is to cough something per box to these kaponyas who do nothing. Insanity indeed.