THE Zimbabwe Passengers’ Association (ZPA) has petitioned President Robert Mugabe to cancel King Lion Bus Company’s operating licence after one of the firm’s buses veered off the road and killed 43 people along the Harare-Chirundu Highway last week.
BY SILAS NKALA/Vanessa Gonye
ZPA secretary-general Paul Makiwa yesterday said government should intervene and suspend the bus company’s operating licence pending investigations following a series of fatal accidents involving its buses.
He said the petition was also directed at Local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere and his Transport counterpart Joram Gumbo
“What is now our worry, as passengers, is that in June 2014, one of this company’s buses claimed the lives of nine passengers. In June 2015, 11 passengers also perished in another accident. Sometime in June 2016, the death toll increased to 19. To our shock this year, in the same month of June, the death rate shot up the ladder to 43 passengers, adding up to 82 deaths in a span of four consecutive years. Let this not be acceptable,” Makiwa said.
“Some years back (Mutare-based) B&C and (Masvingo-based) Mhunga bus companies were acting the same way and their services were suspended. Therefore, we are appealing to the Head of the State His Excellency R G Mugabe, who enacted the Road Motor Transport Act, the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing and the Minister of Transport to suspend the public service operation permit of King Lion and the company should be investigated.”
He added: “We hope and trust that you will act swiftly in order to save loss of lives.”
Yesterday, government called on the deceased’s relatives to visit their nearest provincial administrator’s offices to collect the $200 funeral aid promised by the State after the accident was declared a state of disaster.
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“As government, we provided each deceased $200 as bereavement to augment the $1 300 each deceased received from the Insurance Council of Zimbabwe and all bodies have since been dispersed to the nearest Nyaradzo [Funeral Assurance Company] parlours so that they can be easily collected. For the injured ones, the insurance company is also meeting the hospital bills,” Nathan Nkomo, a director in the Civil Protection Unit, said.
