Police have launched a blitz to weed out unregistered pirate taxis from plying major roads as public transport.
National police traffic spokesperson Inspector Tigere Chigome said the operation, code-named Siirai Mabhazi, is targeting private vehicles operating as public service vehicles.
He singled out smaller vehicles such as Toyota Ipsum, Gaia, Chariot, Noah, Nissan Serena, Elgrand as some of the cars mostly used on the long distance routes.
Police said they would also be monitoring public transporters who overloaded their vehicles saying this had led to increased carnage on the country’s roads. Chigome said they would conduct roadblocks aimed at weeding out these vehicles.
“We are embarking on an operation code-named Siirai Mabhazi which forbids pirate taxi drivers from providing public transport. These are private vehicles for you and your family, not for pirating. Lorries are for carrying goods not people. “If police meet these vehicles pirating, we will offload the people and impound the vehicle. So we are saying to the public desist from boarding these vehicles and save yourself from embarrassment. They should use public transport that is why we have it. They should also use them because they are insured and will cater for them in the event of an accident.”
“We are appealing to the public not to board vehicles when they are already full because if you meet the police and the vehicle is overloaded, passengers shall be forced to disembark from the vehicles,” Chigome said.
“We are also warning the police officers who will be conducting roadblocks to be strict because if we meet those vehicles after they would have passed roadblocks we shall also arrest the police. We are also putting mechanisms in a place to enforce the systems.”
