Concerns over public transport shortage

The Ministry of Infrastructure (Mininfra) has admitted there remain major challenges in the public transport within the country, mainly in Kigali City, with officials saying the government needed to invest more in the sector.State Minister for Transport, Dr Alexis Nzahabwanimana, recently told Members of Parliament of the need to revamp the operations of the national public transport company, Onatracom.“We have thought about combining Onatracom with private agencies but it is still a draft. We could work jointly with them but we have to take a leading role,” the minister said. The state-owned Onatracom has been marred by administrative deficiencies and the agency’s vehicles are dilapidated with only a handful remaining on the road.A report last year indicated that the heavily indebted company only has 20 buses on the road out of a fleet of 180.Nzahabwanimana noted that emphasis is being put on encouraging private transport companies to team up so that government can better subsidize them whenever necessary. He noted that by end this month, Onatracom’s fate will be clear because it has “an important social mission.”Citing some of the problems in Kigali City, MP Jean Damascene Murara wondered: “In the morning and evenings, people get stranded. In Kimironko KBS buses used to come but nowadays only one or two comes yet there is a big population, and this is in addition to the issue of narrow roads.”KBS stands for Kigali Bus Services and its one of the largest private passenger transporters in the country, with most of its operations concentrated in Kigali City. Nzahabwanimana said: “We made a report, in the City of Kigali. We wanted to fast track things but we realized doing it only in Kigali and not other parts of the country would still cause problems.”He said they are now updating the report so that it could cover the whole country.

National

Concerns over public transport shortage