The Sunday Mail
ON September 26, Mr Thomas Timothy heard on the radio that his son had allegedly been harassed to the point of death while trying to board a Mutare-bound bus near Harare’s Road Port terminus.
“Surely, how do people commit murder like this? For us to be harassed so much we can’t even walk freely, being shoved and pushed! No matter your age, these people just pull you all over the place and it happens while some police officers watch. So how can we say we are safe?” said a grieving Mr Timothy.
On that day, the now deceased Mr Matthias Gore awoke early to prepare for his journey to Mozambique, which lies after the border town of Mutare.
As a bishop leading five assemblies of VaEfeso Apostolic Church, he and his wife wanted to attend a conference scheduled for Mozambique’s Manica province.
But he was to be allegedly manhandled by touts who wanted him to board a Smart Express Bus. The suspicion is that the ordeal did not sit well with his hypertension and diabetes.
His widow, Mrs Leticia Gore, said: “I just kept arguing with them on why they were causing problems to older people like my husband. I insisted that I would not pay.
“When another lady passenger in the bus disembarked we also left. That’s when touts started tussling with my husband with one shoving his head and putting hands in his pocket.”
After boarding his preferred bus, Mr Gore reportedly started having difficulties breathing. He was to die soon afterwards.
“Police need to enforce their authority because every time I travel, for instance recently when I went to Mozambique, I was harassed in the company of my last born child. One of the touts threatened us with a broken bottle saying he would cut our eyes because we had disembarked from his bus.
“I told my husband that I was angry with the kind of treatment I continued to get at Road Port. Every time we travel the touts are a problem (and) now my husband has passed on.”
Such illegal boarding points — which include outside Harare’s Exhibition Park and at Mbudzi roundabout on the Harare-Masvingo Highway — are teeming with abusive touts.
This year, a senior pastor with a church adjacent to Road Port said he would not be surprised if someone was soon harassed to death by the touts.
It was to be a tragically accurate premonition.
In May 2016, a pregnant Mrs Lyn Chidawaya (25) succumbed to abdominal trauma, which also resulted in a still birth, after she was elbowed by touts at the Mbudzi roundabout.
In 2015, 50 touts were arrested for allegedly assaulting a policeman who was trying to stop them from harassing a group of women at Mbare Musika Terminus.
Mr Charles Timothy, a cousin to the late Mr Gore, said Government should get rid of all touts.
“We read these stories in papers; people are harassed but it looks like authorities are not doing anything. They caused the death of our brother and we will never get him back. So we are requesting for justice to take its course,” he said.
Mr Amon Laston, a bus conductor, agreed on the need for order.
“Buses should go back to the (termini) because they are causing unnecessary pressure,” he said.
Lawyer Mr Tichawana Nyahuma said touting contravened Section 46 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.
“A law prohibiting touting exists, what is lacking — particularly in Harare — is enforcement. In my view, the authorities have lost the war against the touts, mushikashika and vendors.”
The relevant law reads: “Any person who encumbers or obstructs the free passage along any street, road, thoroughfare, sidewalk or pavement; shouts or screams in a public place to the annoyance of the public; skates in or upon any street, road, thoroughfare, sidewalk or pavement; employs any means whatsoever which are likely materially to interfere with ordinary comfort, convenience, peace or quiet of the public or any section of the public, or does any act which is likely to create a nuisance or obstruction shall be guilty of criminal nuisance”.
National police spokesperson, Superintendent Paul Nyathi said there was need for all stakeholders to play a part in maintaining law and order in the city.
“For the record we are arresting 30 touts on a daily basis and taking them to the courts where they pay a fine and go back to the same points causing chaos.
“What it means is that all stakeholders need to play their part to maintain law and order. This includes council and commuter omnibus operators. Some kombi operators employ touts to load their buses and as long as this persists we will have problems. You are aware of the tout wars in Mbare where touts fight over passengers of which bus operators must stop employing touts. As long as they continue to entertain touts we will have a problem,” he said.
