James Hall
MBABANE - Paul Kruger's ambition of a trans-Swaziland rail line to transport South African goods to the Indian Ocean may finally be realised for rail-borne containerised traffic and other goods.
Swaziland Railways has approved a feasibility study and green-lighted a technical study, which will tag a price for the project. A European government has been approached as source money for a government to government loan similar to the R63 million low-interest loan granted by Italy last year to rehabilitate the rail line in central and eastern Swaziland.
The new line will be extended eastward to Mpumalanga south of Oshoek border post from the rail line's current western terminus at Ngwenya Mine, for which the railroad was originally constructed in 1964 to transport iron ore to Maputo. Goods from South Africa will then use existing lines through the Matsapha Industrial Estate eastward to Maputo. A western railway portal will cut the distance from Gauteng to Matsapha by 200 km from the northern passage through Komatipoort.
Chief beneficiaries will be the coal mines of Ermelo, Bethal and Breyten. Of the estimated 2.2 to 2.7 million tonnes of material expected to be transported annually on the new line, 1.7 to 2.1 will be South African coal destined for Maputo, which now travels the circuitous Komatipoort route.
Swazi consumers and the building industry will benefit from a price reduction in cement, high at present because of the transportation costs of importing cement by rail from Lichtenburg via Komatipoort.
Unlike the Komatipoort to Richard's Bay route as it passes through Swaziland, where train crews switch engines at the border, with Swazi drivers taking southbound trains through the kingdom while South African drivers return with northbound trains, there is a possibility that South African drivers may continue directly through Swaziland.
The new line will require the South African government or a private railway firm to extend the line from Lothair in Mpumalanga to Swaziland. I have received interest and support from the Ermelo area for the line, says Gideon Mahlalela, CEO of Swaziland Railways. The line is intended to minimise Swaziland's marginalisation in the Maputo Corridor Development Initiative, as a way to steer traffic through the country rather than around it on the northern route. At Ermelo there is also concern about being marginalised by the Maputo corridor.
Swaziland Railways will control the line under a likely 25 year build-operate-transfer arrangement with government.
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