The Sunday News
The National Railways of Zimbabwe operates a rail network stretching 2 760 route kilometres of 1 067mm gauge track.
It sits at the centre of the Southern African Region and interfaces with contiguous railways on export/import route entries at Mutare/Machipanda for Beira, Sango/Chicualacuala for Maputo, Beitbridge for South Africa, Plumtree for Botswana and Victoria Falls for Zambia. The NRZ’s central position in the Southern African Region makes it the “hub and gateway of the region”, says the organisation on its website.
Operating three business portfolios, namely freight services, passenger services and real estate, the NRZ is certainly one of the most critical business entities in the country and there is no doubt that once it regains its strength and operational efficiency, it will impact possible on the country’s economy.
During the its peak, the NRZ was the employer of choice, boasting of one of the largest workforce in the country which could be found all over, though it has its headquarters in Bulawayo.
We therefore applaud the Government for working tirelessly to secure business partners to inject capital and recapitalise the company.
It was reported last week that the company’s $400 million deal with a consortium led by the Diaspora Infrastructure Development Group (DIDG) and South Africa’s Transnet was now back on the rails after Cabinet gave a nod to the proposed tie-up.
Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo was quoted as saying; “Yes, I can confirm that Cabinet has agreed to the investment (by DIDG/Transnet). We will soon be meeting with the investor to tie up the nitty-gritties. I am very happy about this development because the investors have a lot of resources they want to pour into the project to make it successful, and this includes reviving NRZ’s passenger and freight business.
So, after concluding the negotiations, the first phase will begin in earnest,” said Dr Gumbo.
DIDG/Transnet was recently announced as the preferred investor out of 85 companies that were interested in investing in the country’s sole rail company.
Our sister paper, The Herald gathered recently that South African banks — Standard Bank, Nedbank, Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) — and the Industrial Development Corporation (SA) have put up funding letters worth $1,2 billion for the project, of which $400 million is earmarked for initial investment in capital expenditure.
But the deal seemed to have run into some hurdles recently after questions were raised on the competence of Transnet to ably invest in the project.
The DIDG/Transnet has an ambitious three-year strategy that is premised on buying new locomotive and wagons and revamping operational efficiencies.
From the $400 million capital expenditure, $150 million will be earmarked for 24 mainline locomotives and 13 rail shunters or shunting locomotives.
Twenty locomotives that are part of the current fleet are expected to be refurbished. Similarly, NRZ plans to acquire 1 000 new wagons and refurbish the 700 that it presently has. It is also envisaged that more than $100 million will be invested in modernising and refurbishing the State enterprise’s train control and signalling system.
Speaking to a local weekly soon after being awarded a tender, DIDG founding executive chair Donovan Chimhandamba said the project was critical to Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and of strategic national importance.
He said the NRZ project will also help to neutralise a threat posed to Zimbabwe’s economic well-being by the bypass development of the 923-metre long Kazungula rail and road bridge network between Zambia and Botswana.
“If you look at the regional infrastructure network, it is absolutely clear that due to lack of investment, Zimbabwe’s rail substructure is now lagging significantly.
“This has led to numerous infrastructure projects being developed around Zimbabwe to effectively by-pass the country,” Chimhandamba said.
We therefore implore all stakeholders to make sure that the deal does not suffer a still birth because it has been long awaited.
The company has been struggling to pay salaries to workers owing to low business because of among other issues, poor infrastructure and low traffic from the manufacturing sector.
It is envisaged that once the company is back on its right footing, it will attract more customers and play its part in offering employment to locals and oiling the country’s economy.
