DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA – The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) plans to increase its cargo haulage capacity from 600,000 per annum to two million tonnes in the next five years as part of efforts to be more commercially viable. 
This comes follows a joint partnership entered between TAZARA and Zambia Cargo and Logistics Limited (ZCL) (formerly known as MOFED Tanzania Ltd) to offer a complete loop of logistics services.
In his presentation at the 7th East & Central Africa Roads and Rail Infrastructure Summit held last week in Dar es Salaam, TAZARA, Managing Director Engineer Bruno Ching’andu told participants the process is underway to amend the law governing the establishment of the authority to meet its new commercial objectives in order to compete in the market competition in the East and Southern transport market share.
He said that the Authority it is set to undergo major changes to improve its performance and benefit the economies of the two countries as of currently the authority gets only 5% share of the Dar es Salaam ports cargo but strategically business is going on to reach up to 60% of the market share through the port.
Established in 1976, TAZARA, which was established to unlock the landlocked Zambia and support the liberation struggle of the Southern African countries, is now working to ensure that it operates profitably.
He said that the rehabilitation of 400 wagons has boosted and improved the services delivery with the transit time average from 30 to 6 days with maximum security and safety.
Engineer Ching’andu further explained that the authority on other hand is a bulk freight transporter, with the capacity to move as much as 1,100 tonnes per full trainload in one haul.
He said with the bilateral arrangements that govern the operations of TAZARA between Tanzania and Zambia, freight consignments that move with the haulier enjoy benefits and advantages that no other transporter is able to offer.
“The purchasing of new track equipment, locomotives of worth $250m that will open up the economies in northern part of Zambia and Southern Eastern part of Tanzania,” he said.
“The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) should be restructured to cope with rapid changes,” Enock Majule, the TAZARA Freight Services Officer said.
That should involve amending the TAZARA Act of 1995 and drawing up new policies and regulations to enable the private sector to pour financial resources into the organisation.
The TAZARA Railway, also called the Uhuru Railway or the Tanzania Railway, is a railroad in East Africa linking the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania with the town of Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia’s Central Province. The single-track railway is 1,860 km (1,160 mi) long and is operated by the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA).
The governments of Tanzania, Zambia and China built the railway to eliminate landlocked Zambia’s economic dependence on Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, both of which were ruled by white-minority governments.
The railway provided the only route for bulk trade from Zambia’s Copperbelt to reach the sea without having to transit white-ruled territories. The spirit of Pan-African socialism among the leaders of Tanzania and Zambia and the symbolism of China’s support for newly independent African countries gave rise to TAZARA’s designation as the “Great Uhuru Railway”, Uhuru being the Swahili word for Freedom.
The project was built from 1970 to 1975 as a turnkey project financed and supported by China. At the time of its completion, two years ahead of schedule, the TAZARA was the single longest railway in sub-Saharan Africa.
TAZARA was the largest single foreign-aid project undertaken by China at the time, at an initial construction cost of $500 million (the equivalent of $3.05 billion today
TAZARA has faced operational difficulties from the start and is in a state of near-collapse as of 2015. Annual traffic was only 88,000 metric tonnes in fiscal year 2015, less than 2% of the railway’s design capacity of 5 million tonnes per year.

By Damas Makangale, Sunday, October 09th, 2016

Source: Business Week

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