MAJOR railway infrastructure projects to link Tanzania with her landlocked neighbours are now set to take off.

The Minister for Transport, Mr Samuel Sitta, announced in Parliament last Saturday that construction of the standard gauge railway will begin this month after a consortium of Chinese railway companies led by China Railway Materials (CRM) was picked to build what is billed to be the single biggest project ever to be implemented by the government since independence.

A Chinese consortium had been awarded a contract to build a 2,561 km (1,536 miles) standard gauge railway connecting Dar es Salaam Port to landlocked neighbours at a cost of 7.6 billion US dollars.

According to the minister, the consortium will provide 10 per cent of the funding for the project while financial adviser Rothschild is finalising procedures for financing of the project through banks, Mr Sitta said. Another major railway line project to link coal and iron ore mine projects in the southern western Region of Njombe to the Mtwara Port is also on the cards.

The minister reported that the government had signed a framework agreement with another Chinese company, China Railway No.2 Engineering Group Co. Ltd., to build a railway line from the coal and iron ore mine projects in Ludewa, Njombe Region to the southern port of Mtwara.

The 1,000-km standard gauge railway line is expected to cost at least 1.4 billion US dollars, according to the government estimates.

The railway line in is expected to unlock the huge coal and iron ore reserves which will make Tanzania one of the top four iron producers in Africa, once commercial production begins. According to the National Development Corporation (NDC) Tanzania is set to produce 1.1 million metric tonnes annually.

The minister said in March it planned to spend 14.2 billion US dollars to construct a new rail network in the next five years, as the country aims to become a regional transport hub. Upgrading of the country’s railway network is a dream come true for many as increased demand for cargo transportation to neighboring landlocked countries as well for domestic supply network had overstretched the existing road network.

Analysts say that railway network will stimulate the economy and prosperity of the region as it will boost trade and investments and create thousands of job opportunities.

But, on the other hand, a good railway network will make Tanzania a truly regional hub for transport and help the country make optimal use of her strategic geographical positioning which had remained manifestly underutilised for many years. Tanzania is a gateway to several landlocked central African countries including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia.

It should be noted that the construction of the railway lines will begin when the government in collaboration with development partners is undertaking a grand project at the Dar es Salaam Port to improve its efficiency. Known as Dar es Salaam Maritime Gateway Project (DMGP), the project entails modernisation of the port.

It is financed by the World Bank, UK Department for International Development (DFID) and Trade Mark East Africa (TMA) and is being implemented in two phases.

Phase one to be funded by TMA is focused on enhancing port’s spatial efficiency through demolition and relocation of sheds 2-7, upgrading roads and gates to introduce a single way traffic flow system at the port, improving productivity and operational processes.

The second phase which will be funded by the World Bank and DFID will concentrate on dredging of the channel and basin, strengthening and modernizing berths 1-7 and construction of roll on roll off (RoRo) terminal.

Source: All Africa

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