THREATS AGAINST THOSE CHARGING BELOW GAZETTED FARES

MANZINI - There are arson attack threats against bus operators who will charge below the gazetted bus fares.

This was revealed by some of the members of Swaziland Bus Association (SBA) during their meeting on the new fares, which was held at Swazi Commercial Amadoda Hall in Manzini yesterday. They suggested that the executive members of the association should approach the Ministry of Public Works and Transport about the issue of non-compliance among public transport operators – like the issue of kombis which ranked along the routes and were charged people below the gazetted fares.

“You (executive committee) need to ask the ministry what are inspectors and the Road Transportation Board doing and why they were not implementing the law by taking such operators to task,” they added. Their argument was that if they failed to address the matter, the public transport business would die a natural death.  “Some kombi operators had mentioned that by 2022, buses will be no more and now, they are threatening to burn us if we do not charge the maximum gazetted fares,” said one of the members of SBA.

Attendees

In that regard, some of the attendees of the meeting supported the view that they should charge the gazetted bus fares. They added that this would also make government not to ask many question when they applied for another hike. They argued that sometimes, government, in particular Parliament, was reluctant to entertain bus fares hike applications because they always charged lower than the gazetted fares. Again, they added that if they charged lower than the gazetted fares, they would lose as public transport operators and the clients would benefit.

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