@SunZambian
A LUSAKA-BASED economist Yusuf Dodia has challenged the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to intervene on public private bus operator to reduce the fares following the fuel reduction that was made earlier April.
Mr. Dodia said it was sad to see poor people continue to pay high bus fares when fuel was reduced.
He told the Sun in an interview that CCPC should not just focus on daily commodity prices but also look into the matters of bus fares.
He said there was a habit of increasing fares whenever fuel prices went up but bus operators were never willing to reduce them once the gas pump price was reduced.
“Here is the problem, we have CCPC which should not be there just to stop manufactures from overpricing consumers.
“They should also be responsible for controlling bus fares as well; so let them do their job, fuel was reduced in April, but bus fares are still the same. Where is the protection from CCPC?” he asked
Mr Dodia said bus fares in Zambia had a tendency of having same prices and that killed the spirit of competition because some of them should have lower fares.
“Let’s say for an example one mini bus operator is charging K10 0n the Chelstone route, another operator should charge either K9 or 9.50 then you can say there is competition something the CCPC is not doing,” said Mr Dodia
Mr Dodia has appealed to CCPC to act on the situation because poor people were having difficulties to pay the high bus fares.
ENDS
