POLICE in Harare said they would soon track down and arrest owners of commuter omnibuses caught flouting road regulations.
Staff Reporter
The move comes at a time when the police appeared to have lost the battle to restore sanity in the city to errant kombi drivers.
“We have realised that the commuter omnibus drivers evade us when we try to arrest them for traffic offences. So, we are now encouraging our officers on the ground to take down the registration numbers of the vehicles and then we track down the owner of the kombi,” said acting traffic police spokesperson Assitant Inspector Luckmore Chakanza.
“This way we will be able to arrest both the owner and the driver,” Chakanza said, adding that the police had already blacklisted 100 kombis.
“We realised that chasing them was putting the life of passengers at risk. We already have over 100 commuter omnibus on our wanted list. These are the people who are running away from the police after committing crimes.”
Some of the offences include dropping and picking up passengers at undesignated points, operating unregistered vehicles and driving without requisite documents. The latest police crackdown comes amid reports that 6 000 of the 10 000 kombis plying Harare routes were operating illegally, prejudicing the local authority of large sums of money in potential parking revenue.
