Africa’s rail infrastructure and rolling stock will get a major boost when the Luxembourg Rail Protocol to the Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment is adopted in 2020/21. Rail Working Group (RWG) chairman Howard Rosen told FTW that the protocol had the potential to unleash massive private sector investment in rolling stock on the continent. The protocol is a new global treaty for the recognition and prioritisation of security interests held by creditors in rolling stock, which will be registered in an international public registry in Luxembourg, accessible 24/7 via the internet. RWG is a not-forprofit organisation established at the request of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law to represent the position of the rail industry relating to the protocol. Rosen said the protocol was expected to be in force by November 2020 or early 2021. “Sweden, Gabon and Luxembourg have ratified it and we think the fourth ratification will be Kenya, which is critical because to go into force it needs four ratifications. The Cape Town Convention has to be enforced and the secretariat based in Bern has to sign off saying the registry is ready to go,” he said. Mauritius was expected to follow within a month and Mozambique had signed but still needed to ratify it, he added. “We are hopeful the SA government will sign it soon.” He said RWG was liaising with DoT senior officials and the department of international relations and cooperation regarding ratification of protocol. Senegal and Nigeria had also indicated their satisfaction with the protocol but they had not yet ratified it, he said. According to RWG, Africa’s rail network remains insufficient compared to other regions – there is just 1.53 km of rail for every 1000 sqkm of land, compared to 4.43 km in Asia, 4.99 km in Latin America and 8.45 km in Europe. Rosen said the protocol was a key component for the development of rail infrastructure as it would open new lines of funding and would grow SA as Africa’s locomotive manufacturing hub. “It’s all very well speaking about expanding the railway but who is going to pay? There isn’t enough money in government treasury to pay for it and the only alternative is to bring in the private sector as far as rolling stock is concerned – given the right tools, it’s something the private sector is perfectly happy to deal with,” he said. Rosen said the protocol would create transparency and reduce the cost of credit due to lowered risk as a result of secured credits, leases and conditional sale contracts, which would enable creditors to repossess their stock if necessary. He said the system would generate more interest from creditors, stimulating competition and further reducing the cost of credit. “It opens lines of credit independent from states so that rail operators can procure rolling stock when they need to and not when the government has the money. Manufacturers will benefit and Transnet will be more than happy to develop more rolling stock for other countries,” he said.