Report: Zimbabwe Bus Drivers Fall Short

In a campaign to combat highway accidents, the transport ministry gave driving tests to 9,674 public transport drivers and nearly half failed, state radio reported Tuesday.

In tests up to Aug. 26, 4,318 of the drivers failed. Some had evidently obtained licenses through "fraudulent means" and had not passed routine driving tests in the first place, the according to the report.

Some drivers desperate to hold onto their jobs in a country of 80 percent unemployment also failed because of ill health or aging.

Drivers' licenses can be bought from corrupt officials for as little as 10 million Zimbabwe dollars ($40 at the black market exchange rate).

Bus accidents are common in Zimbabwe and are blamed on faulty vehicles, shortages of spare parts in the stricken economy, speeding and driver error. Infrastructure such as traffic lights also was in disrepair.

Over a holiday weekend last month, 21 people died in road accidents, double the number killed over the same holiday period last year.

In March, 27 people died when a minibus rammed into a train in western Harare.

In the country's worst accident, 96 people died when a bus plunged into a ravine in rural eastern Zimbabwe

Gas shortages in the economic meltdown have forced many buses off the road in recent weeks. Gasoline and bus fares were included in a government order in June to cut prices of all goods and services by around 50 percent in June.

Business owners say they are being forced to sell for less than it costs to produce items or buy them wholesale. The cuts have led to hoarding and left shelves bare of cornmeal, bread, meat, cooking oil and routine goods such as soap, tea, coffee, cookies, beer and cigarettes.

The cuts were ordered in an attempt to curb inflation, officially 7,634 percent, the highest in the world. Independent estimates put it closer to 25,000 percent.