Major funding needed to restore railways

National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) has embarked on an aggressive funding campaign as part of its efforts to restore the railway operation to a handling capacity of 18 million tonnes of freight per annum – the same amount of freight the railway operator handled in the glory days of 1985. “Currently, the entity is operating at around 30-50% of its capacity due to old and outdated equipment as well as inadequate rehabilitation and maintenance of infrastructure,” said Nixon Kanyemba, public relations manager for the Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) which is facilitating investment into the railway operation on behalf of NRZ. He commented that a lack of funding had led to the ongoing deterioration, made worse by the fact that freight volumes kept decreasing in line with a drop in operational capacity. State-owned newspaper, The Herald, cited permanent secretary in the Zimbabwean Ministry of Transport, Munesu Munodawafa, as saying that the NRZ had seen a decrease in volumes from 9.6 million tonnes in 2000 to a paltry 3.7 million tonnes in 2014. Kanyemba told FTW: “At this stage we are looking for a US$274-million buildoperate- transfer (BOT) investment.” A funding grant from the South African Development Bank last year enabled NRZ to contract global infrastructure development consultants, CPCS Transcom Limited, to assist with its recapitalisation programme. This includes looking at private sector participation agreements and how the various models should be structured.