This is not a fusionnement of companies or a change of name.
Metro-bus is the company which has monopole of public transport here in South African. The Citizen is the name of a quotidian news paper. These companies have two things in common since few month; Bus and information. One may ask how buses can be relevant for a newspapers’ editor as it is for a transport’s business-dealer. Also, speaking about information, I am not talking here of radio-stations broadcasted in the bus, often consisting of news in Xosa or some Afro-jazz from Kaya Fm. Rather my attention is on the fact that Metrobus has allowed The Citizen to provide its selected news head-line in ten pages newspapers called Citizenmetro withing buses. I wonder myself who suggested this fantastic idea of disposing passengers with newspaper within the bus. As a user of buses, I was amazed to see since February frees Citizen’s Newspaper in the bus. Since, pointing every morning at my bus-stop at 7am, I have two expectations; that of my bus to be in time and that of getting my Citizenmetro for fresh info. Till now the arrangement Metro and The Citizen has not raise the ticket price to add in the cost of papers. What happen is that, passengers are free to pick one Citizenmetro once they have their ticket. Everyone chose than for a nice place to seat and read. Ten minutes latter after three of four bus-stops, the bus becomes full. Then one can realise that it is not a freedom right of ladies’ voices in gossips to compete to the radio volume but a heavenly calm of lecture rooms. It is wonderful to see that eighty percent of passengers in the bus are busy reading the Citizenmetro. This observation pushed me to write this few sentences. For example few weeks behind, on a Monday morning in my 6am bus to Gandhi square, the person next to me was not a smiling lady as one may wish but a scholar two time short my height. I didn’t pay attention in the first five minute that the boy had also a newspaper in his hands because I was focus on mine. Few minutes later when I realised that, I was so curious to see what which topic he was reading. It’s obvious that my expectation was to see him skip first few pages on politics and international news and go to the last on music and weekend-sport clashes. I was overwhelmed to see that the boy looking fourteen years old was going topic after topic, from the crash in Cameroon to the latest news on Zimbabwe. He looked much focused and busy reading. I felt very happy to see young like him being interested to grab some knowledge so early in the morning. Reason why, I think that we will impact on future generation if such kind of initiatives can be initiated in other sectors. Knowledge constitutes always a kind of freedom. African governments should subsidise education and provide free education to Citizens when they can says Professor Kuseni Dlamini, guess at the world of work training 2007. The necessity of African countries to compete in this Globalised world will require for African countries to produce and retain skills needed for their development. Skills-shortage and brain-drain issue still not efficiently addressed by most government.
We should admit that even if the majority could afford a 4Rand newspaper, yet not everyone is willing to buy one. Incentives are needed. Free education is a way to go if African has to step forward. I think we should put our hands together for Metro and The Citizen managements. Bravo…
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