Train wagons at Dar es Salaam Railway Station. Photo/FILE
After increasing fares and other charges for cargo freight, the joint Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority (Tazara) now wants to commission 50 containerised wagons.
The company’s marketing manager, Hatchwell Musowoya, told The East African that the company is repositioning itself to handle the expected increase in cargo, especially from the mining boom in Zambia.
Mr Musowoya added that trade in and out of the Asian bloc, gave Tazara a competitive advantage over other routes.
“Of course, when the Angola and Mozambique railway routes will open, competition against Tazara will increase,” he said.
In line with this strategy, Tazara is to commission 50 tanker wagons by the end of July this year and 50 more open wagons very soon.
“In order to improve our services, we have lined up a number of projects — some of which are already ongoing such as the rehabilitation of 18 main line locomotives at Mbeya workshop under contract with General Electric of the United States. So far, two locomotives have been completed,” Mr Musowoya said.
He added that the performance of the rehabilitated locomotives so far has been satisfactory and that by the end of this year, four more locomotives will be completed.
“We are in the process of procuring freight wagons, shunting locomotives and other equipment so as to effectively address our capacity constraints.
These, together with improvement in our service delivery should attract sufficient market share,” he said.
According to Mr Musowoya, the challenge, however, is to get sufficient recapitalisation.
The recent increase in passenger fares was necessitated by fuel price hikes and increased operational costs.
“We had no choice but to revise our fares and rates upwards to meet our budget. However, it should be noted that we had our customers in mind and our new charges and services remain very competitive compared with other transportation modes,” Mr Musowoya said.
The governments of Tanzania and Zambia on one hand and the government of the China on the other are still discussing the privatisation of Tazara, Mr Musowoya revealed.
Two years ago, Tazara received a similar boost when it acquired 50 light truck trolleys, 50 50-tonne covered wagons and lifting equipment consisting of four 10-tonne forklifts.
Other equipment included four 8-tonne mobile cranes with spare parts and 20 sets of 80-tonne hydraulic jacks, also with spares.
According to the company’s chief executive officer, Clement Mwiya, the volume of cargo traffic on Tazara is expected to grow from 600,000 tonnes annually to 800,000 tonnes over the next five years.
Human traffic is expected to grow from one million to 1.2 million in the same period.
This will in turn increase total revenue from the current $35 million to $55 million per year.
