Jakavula slams Mozambique's claims of Spoornet 'sabotage' tactics

Leonard Neill SPOORNET'S CHIEF executive Zandile Jakavula has slammed claims by senior Mozambique railway officials that Spoornet is verbally sabotaging their operations as 'a pack of lies'. He was hitting back at claims by these officials that Spoornet employees were discrediting Mozambique railways which was costing them millions of rands in lost business. The matter has reached such major proportions that a ministerial meeting between the two countries has been arranged for today (August 3) when South Africa's Minister of Public Enterprises, Jeff Radebe, will meet Mozambique's Minister of Transport and Communications, Tomaz Augusto Salomao. The source of the problem, according to David Gomez, commercial director of Mozambique Ports and Railways, is damaging correspondence which he alleges Spoornet officials wrote to clients including Billiton subsidiary Samancor and Martin Granites. He says Spoornet officials had told some of the clients that the Mozambicans did not have the capacity to transport goods, mainly sugar, coal and granite. "Mozambique Ports and Railways is making a big effort to improve its services and get more volumes into its systems," he said. "But these efforts to boost the region and build economic integration are being undermined by forces in Spoornet." Jakavula has retorted with the claim that the Mozambican railway line is in such poor condition between the South African border and Maputo harbour that the Mozambique authorities have to run shorter trains and the country is also short of locomotives. "We need to go back and iron out our problems with them," he says. "I hate it when people make us a scapegoat when they know they have the problem."