ALAN PEAT AFTER THREE years of inactivity in its lease of the Ressano Garcia railway line between Maputo in Mozambique and SA, Spoornet and its partner in the management concession company, the Mauritius-registered New Limpopo Bridge Project Investments (NLPI), have been booted out. Mozambique transport minister Antonio Mungwambe told parliament recently: “The government cancelled the lease, and now the line will be rehabilitated by the Mozambican port and rail company, CFM, on its own, in 2006.” The rehabilitation is expected to start as planned after a successful fund-raising campaign by CFM raised almost R80-million. The lease contract was signed, after years of negotiation, in December 2002, but the consortium never moved to take over management of the line, or to invest any money in it. According to the Mozambique press agency AIM, reports reaching Maputo suggested this was because of an apparently deadlocked dispute between Spoornet and its consortium partner, NLPI. This, the minister added, forced importers and exporters - mostly from the Mpumalanga region - to resort to road transport to-and-from Maputo port. The policy of leasing out Mozambican railways to private management, said Mungwabe, has now failed in two of the country’s three main rail corridors.
