Railway congestion stunts Beira's growth

With a Dutch company now officially having taken over the runing of Beira port, a major drive is on to improve efficiency and productivity and get more customers.
The two immediate targets are Maputo and Durban, say shippers in Harare who have recently been down to Mozambique.
Operations are running very smoothly and the port is hungry for business, says a clearing and forwarding manager. The cranes, forklifts and other equipment are well maintained and it looks as though there could be some serious dredging to widen the channel.
However there is one problem, the railways. The perennial problem of wagon congestion at the port continues to hold up traffic. Little progress is being made on this, with the National Railways of Zimbabwe being unable to tell shippers what is going on.
Furthermore, transit times are still lengthy, with heavy rains in the last six weeks making the situation worse.
It is no coincidence that efficiency at Beira has taken a great leap forward with the involvement of the private sector, said the shipping manager of a company that handles most of the country's tobacco exports, and the same will happen when the government-owned NRZ eventually gets into private hands. We keep promises but nothing seems to happen.