Popular Zambian Bus Operator Faces Ban Over Deaths, Injuries

By Paul Shalala

A burning Mazhandu bus in Livingstone, February 2016

Mazhandu Family Bus Services, a popular coach service in Zambia, faces a ban over a spate of road accidents that have claimed lives and injured dozens of people over the last 12 months.

The company, which is owned by the wealthy Mazhandu family, runs coaches to several towns across Zambia.

Mazhandu prides itself with time keeping as well as free drinks and snacks on board its coaches.

In recent months, the company has procured several Chinese-made Higer buses for its increasing fleet which is one of the largest long haul coach service in the country.

However, in the past one year, several of their buses have found themselves in accidents which has cost lives and left dozens injured.

The latest being on  Monday when a Mazhandu coach lost control while negotiating a curve in Kapiri Mposhi, a town in central Zambia.

That accident left seven people dead and 51 injured.

Nenanji at her Kitchen party on Saturday

Among those who died was a lady Nenanji Silengo who was returning from her kitchen party in the mining town of Chingola and died five days before her wedding which was scheduled for this Saturday.

Her death caused mixed reactions from Zambians on social media as people shared her photos from the kitchen party.

And now, the regulator of transport in Zambia the Road Transport and Safety Agency(RTSA) has given Mazhandu Bus Services a seven  day ultimatum  to show cause why the company's Road Service Licence should not be revoked or suspended for its 'bad' safety record.

According to RTSA Chief Executive Officer Zindaba Soko, the agency is concerned that the record of operation for Mazhandu Family Bus Services has increasingly detoriated from 2013.

"Subsection 16 of section 108 of the Road Traffic Act empowers the Director of the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) to either suspend or revoke a Road Service Licence if the conditions subject to which the Road Service License was granted are not being complied with," stated Mr Soko's letter to Mazhandu Family Bus Services Management.

"The Agency has a responsibility of ensuring the safety of all road users and will in this regard not hesitate to invoke its powers under section 108 of the Act either to suspend or to revoke the Road Service Licence of any operator that has a bad road safety record."

The Mazhandu bus involved in Monday's accident

According to records from the RTSA, on 9^th and 16^th January, 2015 in the Central and Copperbelt Provinces respectively, two Mazhandu buses registration numbers ABZ5921 and ALZ4562 were involved in separate road traffic crashes.

Four people sustained injuries in the crash of the 9^th of January while one person died and 14 were reported to have sustained injuries in the crash of the 16^th of January, 2015.

On 16^th February 2015, another Mazhandu bus registration number ACZ4562, overturned at Kasongo area near Luanshya turn off on the Ndola-Kitwe dual carriageway with 16  people aboard and one person died on the spot with some sustaining injuries due to speeding by the driver.

The records further show that on 29^th February 2016, a Mazhandu bus registration number ABK 8288 was involved in a road accident around 06:00 hours along Nakatindi road from Sesheke to Lusaka where one person died on the spot.

Mr Soko says the safety record  for Mazhandu Family Bus Services has increasingly deteriorated.

"Investigations into the cause of the crash involving your fleet of buses revealed that all crashes occurred after the drivers lost control due to excessive speed leading to such accidents. Over speeding is an offence under the Road Traffic Act No. 11 of 2002 and the Agency notes with concern that there is a growing tendency among public service vehicle drivers to drive at excessive speeds hence endangering the lives of the travelling public," he stated. 

"You have a duty as an operator to instruct your drivers to observe all traffic rules whilst they drive your vehicles because any violations of the law on their part reflects on you as the principal and go a long way in informing the Agency on the caliber of drivers that you recruit to help you in your business."

A Mazhandu bus after an accident in Mazabuka, 2014

The law in Zambia empowers the RTSA to punish erring transport operators when they default on their obligations.      

Section 108 of the Road Traffic Act empowers the Director of the Road Transport and Safety Agency to either suspend or revoke a Road Service Licence if the conditions subject to which the Road Service License was granted are not being complied with.

The Act provides as follows;

108    (16):   "A Road Service Licence may be revoked or suspended in whole or in part or its terms or conditions may be varied by the Director on the ground that any condition subject to which the licence or a variation was granted has not been complied with."

Mazhandu Family Bus Services is yet to respond to the ultimatum.

Proposal To Include Road Safety In Zambia's School Curriculum

A mangled Mazhandu Family Bus Services coach

By Pumulo Mungoma

Probably just like you, I love to share with family and friends my memorable days as a primary school child in the early 1990s at Nakambala Basic School on the sugarcane plantations of Zambia’s sweetest town, Mazabuka. 

I vividly recall how my “veteran” class teacher, a Mrs Munyama, would make us sing beautiful songs before and after classes!  Like many other pupils of our time, one of the almost “compulsory” songs we sang was a road safety melody that went like: “I want to cross the road; look right, look left, and look right again…..”  You remember the song? We sang this song with passion. It was a road safety reminder as we crossed many roads to and from school.  The song enhanced our road safety consciousness.  Today, alas, the picture seems different.

Zambia joined the rest of the world in commemorating the 2014 Zambia Road Safety Week from 14th to 20th December, which was spearheaded by the Road Transport Safety Agency- under the banner; “We Are ALL Pedestrians”.  The agency sought to educate pedestrians on how to protect themselves against road traffic accidents. In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly declared the first-ever “Decade of Action for Road Safety” which paved the way for a declaration and action plan adopted by the African Heads of States in January 2012; which brought the challenge of road safety to the forefront of development.

Meanwhile, it remains an open secret that Zambia has one of the worst road traffic accidents record in the world; just short of being declared a national disaster. According to the Zambian Road Safety Trust, a total number of 4,211 persons died due to road traffic accident in the last two years alone, with many others left in helpless conditions due to road traffic injuries. Sorrowfully, among that statistic is one grade 9 boy I was teaching at a school I am serving at in Kafue district of central Zambia who was killed by a car as he was cycling to school early in the morning. Sad memories of the loss of the late bright boy.

The majority of those affected by road traffic accidents are the vulnerable road users, including pedestrians and cyclists, with a good number being school children.  Road traffic accidents lead to a burden in terms of deaths, injuries and related costs. Unfortunately there is a low priority to obviate the problem, in the same way that many people have lost their guard against road safety.  With the ever growing motorization, the picture in Zambia may even be worse if nothing is done.

What needs to be done?  I propose to make road safety education as part of the school curriculum. Road safety should not only be taught to drivers at a driving school but must include all citizens beginning with school going children.  With such an initiative, there would be the change (for the better) of mindset of road users, regardless of whether they are travelling on roads or pavements.

Evidence from a number of countries show that there can be dramatic success in preventing road traffic deaths and injuries when there is a coordinated, multi-sectoral responses to the problem; which should include the inclusion of more elaborate road safety lessons in the school curriculum.   Guaranteeing road safety may be difficult and long, due to many factors such as continued inadequate road safety institutional capacity, inadequate funding and weak technical leadership.  

We need to go beyond just Road Transport Safety Agency helping with children crossing the roads through the traffic wardens employed nationwide. The formulation of road safety school curriculum would prove relevant in reducing road traffic accidents as every citizen who has passed through school will have the basic data, information and knowledge on road safety- instead of leaving such road safety education provisions in the hands of the Zambia Police and the Road Transport Safety Agency only. School curriculum framework will help influence citizens’ behavior from childhood to adulthood as road users, by improving their knowledge of the causes and consequences of road traffic accidents, and how to avoid them.

In Zambia, it is even surprising to know that most people do not even know that the pedestrians must move on the right hand side of the road. Everything on the road for most pedestrians is a “changanya” affair.  You will agree with me that by learning about road safety in school, pupils can start to develop appropriate skills and knowledge that will help make them safer in the road environment.  It is my prayer that government will bend to this proposal in the love of seeing a reduction in road traffic accidents. Every Zambian from childhood must take a role to improve the safety of Zambia’s roads as individuals, and by working together. This can only be a realistic with education.

Road safety education is an important life skill that should be provided to children as early as pre-school, and continue through to the end of secondary school- with varying topics being covered depending on the age of the pupils.  For example, young children can be taught about holding hands with their parents when near the road, older children can be taught about wearing bicycle helmets, and teenagers can be taught about safe driving. Starting road safety education will hopefully mean that these children will have good attitudes and skills first as pedestrians and cyclists, and then, when they start driving.

This will also demand that teachers are also equipped about road safety education training from their respective teacher tertiary institutions so as to effectively deliver road safety education. The teachers could also give parents the information they may need to reinforce the lessons the pupils have been taught in school so that the “remedy” stands the taste of time.

I am aware that the introduction of a school curriculum framework on road safety will not end all road traffic accidents, but will surely provide a significant reduction in their occurrence as it is more likely that when equipped with road safety education Zambian citizens will develop a sense of responsibility for their own safety and the safety of others all the time.

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pumulo is a Zambian educator, trade unionist and a writer on matters that relate to the education policy.  He also works with various education-based organisations such as the Zambian Teachers Forum.

Cell phone: +260-954-623860

Email: epm1983@yahoo.com; pumulo@teachersforum.org.zm

www.teachersforum.org.zm