E82 FROM MBABANE TO NHLANGANO

MBABANE - Commuters will now pay E82 when travelling to Nhlangano from Mbabane by bus and E826 when using the services of a taxi.

This is the country’s longest route covered by an express bus, which previously cost E76 for a bus and E624 for a taxi. Travelling to and from Mbabane and Manzini would cost commuters E29 from a previous E25, which was later cut to E20 by transport operators.  These are the new bus and taxi fares which would come to effect at the beginning of next month.
The National Roads Transportation Council (NRTC) has already implemented these new fares in the Lubombo corridor and it would be implemented in the Manzini-Mbabane corridor and the entire nation’s routes from next week.

These are hiked fares that were gazetted and given the green light by government in 2015. Bus fare regulations were tabled in parliament on Thursday but Members of Parliament (MPs) said the bus fare hikes would not be implemented until they debated them. Parliament will be taking a break as we are heading for the festive season and that, in essence, means the MPs will only debate the bus fare regulations when parliament re-opens next year. Swaziland Local Transport Association National Chairman Mandla Dlamini said they would wait for them to come back and debate the fares but in the meantime, they would be implementing the fares that gazetted in 2015.

Implementing

He said they would be implementing them in all the routes around the country, a process which is already underway in the Lubombo Region. He said when parliament opens next year; they would have already implemented the 2015 gazetted fares in all the routes. “The unfortunate part is that the commuters would be complaining yet we have only hiked the fares by a small percentage given the recent high petrol hike. Everything in the market will be going up including electricity. “However, you never hear about debates on the aforementioned but when transport operators hike fares, it should be debated,” he said.

Dlamini said from next week, they would give a five-day notice to commuters in Manzini and Mbabane where the next implementation of the fares would be effected.

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