By A Correspondent- One of the local cross border buses, Enno Coaches is robbing desperate Zimbabweans travelling to South Africa of their hard-earned cash and dump them in Musina.
The bus travels from Harare to Johannesburg with a six-member crew comprising two (2) drivers and four(4) touts masquerading as conductors who all be having ticket books each.
The touts charge desperate travellers with no passports and other legal travelling documents US$200 promising to take them to Johannesburg.
The notorious touts among the crew are Ronnie Zeze known as Mrewa, Obert, a Mutangadura is also known as Maga Maga, Obert and one Desha.
These touts lure desperate travellers to the bus and charge them US$200 from them as bus fare, inclusive of illegal border crossing fees and South African police checkpoints bribes.
After collecting the money the bus takes the travellers to Beitbridge border post, help them jump the border and then start demanding some top-up fees just after the border.
The bus crew upon crossing the border starts accusing each other of mismanaging the bus fares paid to them by passengers and pleads to the travellers for more money saying they want to pay the South African police so that the passengers would not be deported.
Every time the bus gets to a police checkpoint the bus crew demands ZAR 100 (Rands) from each of the passengers saying they want to bribe the police.
The South African government recently increased police checkpoints because of the riots which took place in Kwazulu Natal and Gauteng Province and from the border to Musina they are now five police checkpoints.
This means that one passenger from the border to Musina would pay 500 Rands on top of his or her US$200 they would have paid in Harare as their bus fare.
This has resulted in many boarding Enno Coaches finding it difficult to proceed to Johannesburg and get alternative transport, leaving behind the bus in Musina.
The bus does not offer any refunds nor does it attempt to help the disgruntled passengers
The Enno bus crew has been using this tactic since the last year when the Covid-19 pandemic called for lockdowns and curfews.